


Nor Let Me Die Before I Have Begun to Live

by thequidditchpitch_archivist



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, BDSM, Bondage, Dom/sub, Drama, Erotica, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, M/M, Public Sex, Rimming, Romance, Slash, The Quidditch Pitch: The Changing Room, Watersports
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-05-31
Updated: 2007-05-31
Packaged: 2018-10-27 05:10:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 29,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10802421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thequidditchpitch_archivist/pseuds/thequidditchpitch_archivist
Summary: After the Final Battle, Harry Potter is missing presumed 'killed in action'. Only Ron refuses to give up hope that Harry might still be alive and when, six months later, he finally finds The Boy Who Lived, what he finds horrifies him and he discovers he has a lot of rather unconventional work to do to bring Harry back to the wizarding world.





	Nor Let Me Die Before I Have Begun to Live

**Author's Note:**

> Note from Annie, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [The Quidditch Pitch](http://fanlore.org/wiki/The_Quidditch_Pitch), which went offline in 2015 when the hosting expired, at a time I was not able to renew it. I contacted Open Doors, hoping to preserve the archive using an old backup, and began importing these works as an Open Doors-approved project in April 2017. Open Doors e-mailed all authors about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact us using the e-mail address on [The Quidditch Pitch collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/thequidditchpitch/profile).

  
Author's notes:

The title is from a poem by Matthew Arnold. Thank you to Thevina, without whose inspiration, encouragement, friendship and support I would never have begun this - her beta-ing was pretty damn good too. All mistakes remaining are mine own.

* * *

Ron hovered three storeys high over a narrow London street.

Unnamed churches tolled midnight across the capital and a slow, warm rain fell over his face. Beneath him small figures hurried through pools of sickly light. They paid as little attention to him as he paid to them. Someone who knew him well might have seen that tears were threatening to mingle with the rain falling from the matted strings of red hair and that wetted his cheeks. 

Ron hung under the eves of a seedy Victorian hotel, his broom swaying gently under the weight of wet robes. He looked across the street and down slightly through the window of a small and sparsely furnished room. There were no curtains: only a dirty sheet hung at the window, and with the light on inside the room, it afforded no privacy. 

On the bed, a magazine, splayed and battered like a dead bird, thin sheets rippled like grey water, a bedside table with a bare top and small lamp, tissues, a broken pair of glasses, an empty packet of sweets, a cold bulb hanging from the ceiling on white flex. A wardrobe with a door cracked open. A pile of dull clothes on the floor in the corner: it was a poor room and sitting on the bed...

For six months Ron had searched the country for the person he now saw sitting on the low-sagging bed in the room across the street. After so many lonely nights the line between loyalty and desperation was one that Ron had crossed many times, backwards and forwards. Ever since the Final Battle when that person had disappeared, the person he cared most about in the world, Ron had followed every rumour, questioned every witness and refused to believe as most did that Harry Potter, ‘The Boy Who Lived’, was gone forever. But loyalty had a cost. In the process of his search he alienated himself from almost everyone he loved. He hadn't chosen this, but one by one his friends and family found his obsession too much to deal with; he became first a joke and then an annoyance to the wizarding-world until, for the last four months, Ron had been utterly alone. Even the Daily Prophet had tired of him and moved onto other, more interesting marks for their venom. Now, all he had left was persistence. The only warmth he had felt for many freezing nights had been that sense of loyalty, a desperate hope that burned in his chest. Whatever it was that drove him, he knew only one thing to be true: Ron Weasley did not give up on his friends. Ever.

But now, so close, he was suddenly unsure. He faltered. What he saw in that small room appalled him. Harry had always been small and slight, years of malnutrition and abuse had seen to that, but the figure in the room across the street was more than slight: Harry looked ill. His face was drawn, his t-shirt and shorts hung from shoulders and hips like windless flags. The glorious, messy pile of black hair was shaved to the scalp and the scar, always half-hidden before, stood dark and vivid on his forehead. In the same moment that Ron gasped in elation setting eyes on his friend, he also knew that whatever privations he had suffered himself in the last six months, Harry had suffered more. There was so little of the Harry he had known in the bent, sad little figure on the bed, that Ron was close to tears of frustration. He even wondered if he was too late, if perhaps the Harry he was looking for was indeed gone forever.

Ron had been so focussed on his quest that now it appeared to be over, all the scripts he had rehearsed in his head for this reunion – the silly ones, the serious ones, the sentimental and even the angry ones – now all seemed wrong. He didn’t know what to do. And while he hung in the air trying to decide what to do next a scene unfolded in that small room which sent waves of desperate panic through him.

Harry got up from the bed where he had been flicking through a well-thumbed magazine. Obviously someone had knocked the door and Harry went to open it. When Harry came back into view there was a tall, middle-aged man with him. The man was well dressed in a suit and tie: Ron noticed the small details like the glint of cufflinks and the silk-lining in the man’s jacket: clearly this man was out of place here. Harry was smiling, but everything Ron knew about his friend told him it was a false smile. The two people in the room spoke a few words to each other and then a frown crossed the older mans face and he began wagging his finger. Harry hung his head as if ashamed but Ron knew, he just knew, that Harry was acting, playing a part. The man sat down on the bed, stiff and upright looking, very proper. Harry came towards him and the man made some gestures as if he was telling Harry off. Then to Ron’s astonishment, Harry slipped his fingers into the waistband of his shorts and shucked them off, he stood for a minute half-naked in front of the older man, only the length of his t-shirt covering his modesty. Then Harry bent over the man’s knees, his head hanging down below the edge of the bed where Ron couldn’t see his face, his pale, bony backside pointing up in the air.

Suddenly the man brought his hand up into the air and then down again with a vicious looking smack on Harry’s upturned arse. Ron jumped. The movement was shocking and unexpected; he felt the smack too. Again and again the man raised his hand and brought it down onto Harry’s backside. At first, from what Ron could see, Harry didn’t seem to react much but as the spanking went on he saw the pale backside begin to squirm and twist, to redden. Big hands held Harry firm against the man’s knees. Again and again: smack and smack. Harry began to fight a little, his head thrashing back and forth every time a blow landed. There were split-second moments when Ron could see Harry’s face as it jerked above the edge of the bed. The look on Harry’s face made Ron want to muster all the unforgivable curses at once and fire them at the man. The look on Harry’s face, though on the surface one of agony and contrition was actually, to Ron’s eyes, even more frightening. Behind the play-acting it was a look of blank nothingness.

The man finally stopped. He rolled Harry off his lap and let him just tumble to the floor. Still the man appeared to be castigating him and when Harry knelt up in front of him he was nodding his head. The man stood up. This whole scene was way outside Ron’s experience but something about the way Harry and this man were posed, about the distance between them and something from long forgotten changing-room taunts told him there was worse to come. 

The man unzipped and a brought a long, hard tube of flesh out of his trousers. Of course Ron knew what was happening. Intuitively he knew what would happen next but thankfully some form of blockage in his head made his eyes lose their focus. He knew what he was seeing as the kneeling Harry lunged forwards. He knew that Harry had taken the man’s erect cock in his mouth and was now almost wrapping himself around the man’s legs in a kind of hungry frenzy. He knew that when the man finally pushed Harry’s face away and clamped a hand on the shaved head to hold it still, there would be a moment’s pause and then a spray of come would cover Harry’s face. It would squirt in thick gouts into his open mouth, drip from his chin and then be smeared over his cheeks by the wet head of the man’s cock. 

Ron knew all this. He saw it happen and yet he didn’t see it. Finally the anger and the frustration and more than anything a deep, black feeling of desolation grabbed at Ron’s chest like a clenching fist and the tears rolled out freely. He slumped forwards on his broom and spiralled down to the street, not caring that Muggles stopped to stare as he stumbled to the pavement. Confused and hurting, Ron tumbled himself round a dark corner and fell against the wall of a narrow alleyway. As he slid to the ground a deep moan escaped his lips and his body finally gave way, shaking and jerking uncontrollably as he sobbed into the rain.

 

Morning came with a grey light that seeped into the alleyway and stroked Ron with bleak fingers until he came awake. For a moment he thought he was still in a nightmare; every small detail of the world around him was crooked or warped like funhouse mirrors. Crisp packets and damp newsprint flapped, broken-winged, through the alley, tyres hissed past on the wet road reciting Parseltongue limericks, chain link fencing rattled like a ghost’s warning. He twisted and stretched: cramped joints cracked. The delusions of bleary eyes slowly cleared but the sense of nightmare did not end. He had slept very little and when exhaustion had finally taken him, mad dreams had washed over him making him snap awake every few minutes. He had imagined finding Harry in so many ways and in so many places in the last six months: now he was scared to bring the search to an end. He was lost. He groped around for a plan. He could think of nothing. His mind was blank and whenever he tried to consider the situation rationally, everything in his head seized up.

Eventually, as the early hours moved by him almost slowly enough to taste, Ron began to realise that he had to do something. It was no use trying to formulate a plan or rehearse a scenario. The desperation was building inside him and he knew he had to see Harry. He didn't know what they would say to each other but he would just have to trust that to their friendship and their shared history. Packing his broom into a Muggle tennis racquet bag, he unwound his aching limbs and stepped out of the alley and across the main road.

The door of Harry's building was open. Inside it smelt of dry paper and old varnish. No one stirred in the corridors or behind the many blank doors. With some difficulty Ron climbed the empty stairwell and made his way to the front of the building, trying to judge which was Harry's door. 

Dry skin prickled on his arms as he knocked three times.

Harry came to the door quicker than Ron expected. There were red rims around Harry's eyes and under those, dark circles. A pair of briefs only just kept hold on his hip bones, ribs fluttered through the pale skin with each breath.

Looking past Ron into the corridor, deadpan, Harry said,

"I wondered when you'd show up." 

 

Harry stepped aside without saying anything; it was a sullen invitation to come inside. Ron couldn't speak. He walked into Harry's room, his mouth open, all power gone out of him. Ron had seen and had been subject to powerful dark arts in his time but never had he been so oppressed my magic as he was by the despair he felt now.

"You look like shit," said Harry, and for just a moment Ron looked to him for a sign of the old banter, the slightest glint of gold in those green eyes but there was nothing there. Harry tossed him a towel from across the room and Ron realised that he was still wet through from his night in the alley.

"Thanks," Ron said, finally. But Harry didn't respond. Ron towelled his hair and face but his clothes were still sodden. "Harry..."

"Oh don't!" said Harry sharply. "You found me okay? You've satisfied some Weasley sense of honour. I'm alive. So all I have to do now is convince you not to tell anyone in _your_ world and then you can be on your way again okay?"

"I wouldn't..." Ron began, about to tell Harry he would never tell anyone something Harry wanted kept secret. As he said it realised that there was a good chance no one would believe him in the wizarding world - and a new pain hit him as he realised the power of that simple phrase, ‘your world’ - and it was hardly the main point anyway. Finally finding something of himself again in his confusion, and beginning to feel a strong anger building inside, all Ron could think of came out as, "Harry, what the hell happened to you?"

Harry gave a sort of quiet snort and turned away; he leaned forward and pressed his forehead against the grey glass of the window.

There was a long and dangerous silence.

"Harry?" Ron was beginning to feel a deep sense of fear. Probing his feelings, he realised that he had thought he could trust this meeting to their shared history, to years of friendship. Now, however, he was scared that it was not this Harry with whom he shared that history. Perhaps this was a different Harry, so changed by circumstances that they didn't share enough any more. "Harry?" he said again, louder now almost shouting in his confusion.

Quietly and with no feeling in his voice, not turning back from the window, Harry said, "What is it you want to know?"

"Everything!" gasped Ron. "What happened to you? Why did you disappear? What the hell are you doing in this Muggle hell-hole? And why..." Ron's voice cracked but he forced himself to carry on, "...and why did you..." For a moment, all the anger and yearning of six months closed his throat. "Why the hell did you leave without me!" There was silence for a minute, then he said more quietly, "Why did you leave me behind?"

Staring at Harry's back, for a long moment Ron thought there was no reaction at all. Then he saw a soft shaking in Harry's shoulders, Harry's head fell slightly lower, a small sob escaped from his tortured frame. Without thinking, Ron rushed forward, not sure what to do but knowing he had to stop Harry's tears, he had to be a comfort. He put a hand on Harry's back and instantly wished he hadn't; Harry flinched,  he jerked and twisted round. Tears flying from his cheeks and green eyes burning Harry shoved Ron so hard he fell back onto the bed,

"Don't touch me!" Harry roared. "Don't fucking touch me!" Then Harry slid down to the floor under the window, his arms round his knees, his head buried in his arms.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry..." Ron didn't know what to say, what to do. He had never felt so completely out of his depth.

It might have been minutes, it might have been many hours: Harry sobbed into his folded arms and Ron watched from the bed, tears slowly and silently coursing down his own cheeks. Harry's sobs slowly disintegrated into a mournful silence, but still he didn't lift his head.

After an eternity Ron said, so quietly, 

"Talk to me Harry. Please talk to me."

"I don't know what to say. I can't talk about it," said Harry at length. The silences were almost unbearable to Ron. There had never been a time when they hadn't been able to talk, to laugh, to take the piss out of each other. They had faced werewolves, vampires, dark wizards and all manner of dangers together, yet none of that seemed as serious as this moment. Harry still hadn't raised his head, he hadn't looked at Ron but eventually he said, "How's your mum and dad?"

"Erm..." Ron realised he didn't have much option but to tell the truth. "I don't really know, to be honest. We're kind of not speaking I guess. I know mum was devastated when you disappeared. You know she always thought you should have been a Weasley. I think after a while it was easier for her to think you were dead." Harry snorted again. 

"What about the twins?" 

"Well..." Ron took a deep breath, glad at least that they were talking even if it was difficult to think about his family. "They were really good at first, they supported me for quite a while, even after mum and dad kicked me out but, you know, I guess I've been a bit of a bastard to everyone really, can't really blame them."

"And Ginny?" If anything, Harry’s voice was quieter still as he asked this. Ron had been dreading the question, even when he thought this reunion was going to be a joyful one. He didn't know how to say this to Harry except straight out.

"Harry, Ginny's dead" Harry grunted, as if someone had kicked him, but he said nothing. "There were a whole group of Death Eaters... It's a long story but she gave as good as she got: there were just too many of them." And Ron, who hadn’t cried about his sister’s death for many months, suddenly felt his voice crack and his throat tighten. He breathed deep, determined not to think about it now.

For nearly an hour, the conversation continued like this: Harry asking about people they both knew. Ron, realised quite soon that the list of the dead, the permanently injured, the war-wounded and the number of people he hadn't spoken to for months made this a depressing litany. But at least they were talking. Harry never once lifted his head from his arms.

Finally, when Ron had to confess that he hadn't spoken to Hermione for months because of what he characterised as 'a bit of a row' - in fact a screaming match which had lasted nearly three hours, and seen them both say things that were unlikely to ever be forgiven - Harry said,

"So what are you going to do now?"

Exasperated and tired and very emotional Ron blurted out,

"Harry, I want to help you. Isn't that fucking obvious? Haven't you noticed I seem to have pissed off the entire wizarding world? Quite a feat, even for a Weasley, wouldn't you say? Haven't you realised why they've all pretty much disowned me? They all think I'm a freak. They all think I've gone off my rocker because I kept insisting that you're alive. It's like when you were trying to tell everyone Voldemort was back and it was easier for them to believe that he wasn't. People want to move on from the war and you disappeared. It's like perfect closure. They want you to be gone, so they don't have to think about it. They're a bunch of hypocrites, the lot of them! They couldn't bear me being around because I wouldn't let it go." Ron felt his eyes watering dangerously; he dry-swallowed several times to keep back the tears. "I wouldn't let you go!" For a long time Harry didn't respond.

"You should have let me go," he said at last. "I'm not worth it. I'm not worth all that."

"But you are!" said Ron, now letting the tears flow freely. "You are worth it... to me..." Then with a sudden defiance, he said, "You're my mate and that's important!" He gulped for air. "Harry, what's happened to you? Who was..." and he stopped, suddenly realising he'd admitted to his spying last night.

Harry got up. He seemed stiff but suddenly businesslike.

"I have to get some sleep." 

"What?" 

"I'm tired. I need to sleep."

"But..."

"You can have the bed tonight and I'll kip on the floor."

"Harry," Ron pleaded weakly

"Tomorrow we can sort out what you're going to do but you can stay tonight."

And that was it. Ron could see that Harry had closed down the conversation and wasn't going to go there. Ron cursed himself for his slip of the tongue.

 

Despite the twisted silence which fell between them, and despite the anguish rolling his stomach over, once he lay down he fell asleep quickly. He had learnt in the last few months to take sleep whenever it could be had. But he slept in fits and starts, half-waking every few hours, confused by the grey daylight from a strange window. Every time he woke he listened quietly for a few moments until he heard the soft snuffling noise Harry made when he slept. After years of dormitory life, the sound of Harry sleeping was like a comfort blanket, as soon as he heard it he was able to fall back to sleep again.

Sometime in the afternoon he woke again, feeling cramped. He shifted slightly, then froze as he realised that a heavy arm was draped around him. The heat of a body pressed into his back. The soft noises of Harry’s sleep were close behind his ear. He relaxed a little. Harry and Ron had never been demonstrative in their affection. They weren’t the kind of friends who hugged and touched. But things were different now and Ron was surprised to realise that he felt no cringing embarrassment to be held like this by Harry. Perhaps the war and all that followed had softened some of his stiff corners, battered down some of that reserve. To feel Harry so close, his hot breath on the side of Ron’s neck, was an undeniably strange sensation but it had a powerful effect. Ron felt different. He felt loose-jointed, light-headed, and it took a while to realise that it was a feeling of relief that was flooding though him, having a strong physical effect; he was relaxed in a way which was deep and complete. The months of constant strain and tension had finally slipped off his shoulders and he felt as though his entire body had been unbound from some tight coil. He felt warm, relaxed and, for the first time in many many months, he smiled. For the first time in all those months he knew again what it was to feel hopeful.

Closing his eyes, even Harry’s simple soapy smell was reassurance enough and he slipped off again into sleep.

The next time Ron stirred he did not come fully awake. Soft heat rolled round his head like an incipient headache and his skin pricked with a dew of sweat. Dully he realised there was a hot sun brightening a square on the pillow around their heads. In this half-sleep, he swept a hand over his face and it came away wet. He stretched, uncomfortable and sweaty in his clothes; he twisted and put his hands to his thighs where they knocked Harry’s arms. Absently Ron flicked his erection into a more comfortable position. When he finished arranging himself, the flat of Harry’s hand fell back and pressed softly over the fly of Ron’s jeans. Ron pressed his hips forwards slightly and felt the soft chaffing of denim against skin. Harry closed his hand and Ron rocked gently, pressing back and forward. Neither asleep nor awake Ron twisted and turned, fought the dirty sheet that wrapped them both now, and ended with Harry’s breath in his face, a cooling draught across the fever heat of sleeping in the sun. Ron might have been dreaming but something was slowly pushing the reality of what was happening to the front of his mind.

Ron’s rough jeans and Harry’s briefs met and pressed together. Harry’s fingers slipped through belt-loops and pulled. Ron’s hand fell to a sharp white hip and drew it in. Their cocks squashed and jabbed and the pushing grew harder. Breath came in stutters on Ron’s face, two chests heaved and two mouths opened in silence: so close to touching, lip to lip. Slowly, Ron’s eyes came open and he wasn’t asleep. He froze. Harry’s eyes were still closed but Ron could hear his own heart thudding loudly: he thought it would wake the building. Harry’s breath was in Ron’s face, Harry’s sweat on Ron’s fingers, the taste of Harry was already in Ron’s mouth. 

Ron was horrified with himself, confused and terrified that Harry would wake. He lifted his hand a millimetre or two, just clear of Harry’s hip, he pulled his crotch away very slightly, just so they were no longer pressed together. He wanted to extricate himself but they were twined up together by miles of damp sheeting. With a flushing sensation Ron realised he had a burning erection. He paused, unable to think what to do next. Strange memories mixed: the tenderest memory of Ginnny falling asleep against him in Grimmauld Place, trying to move his arm from under her without waking her up: the vilest memory of the older man last night burying his cock inside Harry’s mouth. Ron looked at that mouth now, thin lips slightly parted, the clean white skin of Harry’s cheek looking so vulnerable. Along with the confusion, and the affection came a sense of shame.

A small mewing sound came from deep in Harry’s throat. The kind of noise a cat makes, wanting the stroking to continue. Not wanting Harry to wake up, Ron lowered his hand onto Harry’s hip again and waited a moment until Harry was still.

And he waited… not wanting to move, desperate to be untangled.

Then to Ron’s horror Harry’s hand took his again, more purposefully, more wakefully, and began to push it under the waistband of Harry’s briefs, Ron’s fingers felt a damp heat and a fold of tender skin. He tried to pull away gently but Harry’s fingers held his and pushed firmly down.

“Please,” whispered Harry, his eyes still closed. There was a slight but disconcerting note of pleading in his voice. Harry tilted his head; their foreheads rested against each other. “Please,” he said again and pushed Ron’s hand until it rested on the hot papery skin of Harry’s cock. Harry gasped and then forced both their finger closed around the hard springy flesh. Skin slipped over meat inside a tight tube of fingers. Ron felt a strong pulse run through Harry’s cock and it travelled the length of Harry’s thin body. Harry bit his bottom lip and frowned so Ron could feel it against his forehead. Then Harry tipped his head and their lips met, Harry’s tongue pushing, wet and firm, into Ron’s mouth. 

Ron’s stunned attention focussed sharply and the wetness in his mouth was all he felt. The living, twisting sensation of Harry’s tongue, the brushing of soft lips like tissue paper against his own. He was a feather on Harry’s breath. Everything in him heaved with the surge of Harry’s demanding tongue against his teeth and into his mouth. Harry’s saliva flooded him like liquid diamonds and from Harry’s nose a hot breath covered him like wings. It was by far the most alien, most wonderful and most terrifying thing he had ever felt.

It was an inexpert kiss, teeth bumped, and there were nips and bites as their mouths slid over and away from each other. But Harry seemed to know that Ron was holding onto this ride for dear life and kept their mouths open and wet and pressing, sensing that if they breathed apart Ron would falter.

Harry let go of Ron’s hand around his cock, but Ron’s hand stayed, not moving, just holding as Harry ground his cock through Ron’s fist. Their mouths stayed locked and Harry fumbled urgently with Ron’s belt and fly. Ron felt the buttons pop and the painful half-bending of his hard cock released into the heat of Harry’s hands. Expert hands, Ron thought. Then he tried hard to banish that thought. As soon as Ron’s cock was in those hands Harry moaned into Ron’s mouth, whimpered almost. Fingers tickled and pressed at Ron’s bollocks, soft fingertips stroked the thin foreskin, a thumb brushed across the head. Ron gasped into Harry’s mouth.  Face to face they ground towards each other; Harry was skilled in manipulating another man’s cock. Ron began to moan back into Harry’s mouth but there was a note of confusion and protest there. Still, Ron couldn’t pull away. Ron felt his cock manoeuvred down and out of his jeans, he felt it brush the softest skin, Harry closed his thighs around Ron’s cock and then put his hands on Ron’s arse and pulled them together. Harry milked Ron’s cock with his inner thighs: pressed, squeezed, pulled. It was a whore’s trick. It worked. A whore’s trick! Ron struggled to get free.

Their mouths separated and Ron rolled away onto his back. But Harry rolled too to sit astride Ron‘s stomach, looking down, his face bright and his eyes fiery like a manic pixie, his hands on Ron‘s shoulders pushing him down. Ron’s brow crinkled. He wanted to stop and breathe. He couldn’t breathe. He wanted to fly away, but most of all he wanted to fly away with Harry, naked and pressed together like the inseparable unit they had always been. In that second Ron took in all of Harry’s body above him: the mad eyes; the porcelain skin and the ribs heaving painfully underneath; the shadows of stark collar bones; the glossy sheen of sweat all over; the black tufts of hair like shadows in his pits and crotch; the long, thin but bolt-straight cock straining… Harry made to move down Ron’s body, his fingertips pressing firm trails into Ron’s chest, curving round Ron’s waist. But when Harry’s head lowered towards Ron’s crotch it was too much. Hefting himself up and out from under Harry, Ron scrabbled to close his jeans over his cock and found his voice at last between breaths he still had to fight for.

“What the bloody hell are we doing? What are you doing? Harry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I wasn’t trying to take advantage, I was asleep, I woke up and you had, we‘d already…” and the excuses fell fast out of his mouth and as he went on he saw Harry’s face harden. In the end Ron’s babble died away, he had no idea what he could say about what had just happened. There was an ominous pause. Ron couldn’t meet Harry’s eyes, he knew the light had gone out. He started again,

“Look mate…” but Harry interrupted. 

“It’s late. It’s time for you to go.”

Incredulous, Ron spluttered for a moment. “What? You’re kicking me out? Just like that?”

“I said, earlier, I said you’d have to go.” And in a final surge of exasperation and anger and more other feelings than Ron could have named, the obvious demand came,

“Come back with me. Harry, you have to come back!”

Harry didn’t pause. He shook his head.

“No. I’m not coming back."

“But why?” Ron was almost shouting and the frail figure at the end of the bed looked more closed off than ever. “For fuck’s sake why Harry? Come back to our world. Come back and be the person you’re meant to be. There’s no magic here. Come back and…” Ron’s voice broke at the thought of it. “Come back and fly with me again. You can fly you stupid son of a bitch, so what are you DOING HERE?” Ron finally broke into a million pieces and sobbed uncontrollably. He sobbed till his throat hurt and his stomach cramped, he howled and crunched forwards, he grabbed at himself and shook, and Harry watched, unmoving. Then finally as Ron‘s sobs faded into ragged wet breaths, in a still small voice Harry said,

“I can’t fly”

Ron looked up. He sniffed and wiped his eyes with the back of his hand.

“What?”

“I can’t fly Ron.” Despite himself Ron noticed it was the first time since he arrived that Harry had called him by name. “I can’t fly and I can’t do magic. It’s gone, it’s all gone. I’m a squib or as good as, I’m broken. He took it, that’s what happened when He died, He took it all with him.” 

“Voldemort…” and Ron stopped his question. The most horrifying thing he had ever seen happened just then at the end of the bed…

…Harry Potter, The Boy Who Lived, shuddered at the name of Voldemort.

 

Ron couldn’t absorb what Harry was telling him. The most powerful, most committed, most important wizard Ron had ever known who also happened to be the friend he loved most in the world, had no magic. Desperately he started in on a plan.

“We can fix it. Harry, we can get you all sorted out. St Mungo’s… no, Neville, he’s a healer now, best in the country they reckon” Harry snorted

“Neville survived?” He sounded incredulous. And it was incredible, really. Ron suddenly had a vision of the hapless oaf, the loyal and brave but undeniably accident-prone boy they had shared a dorm with all those centuries ago - and he survived it all. Ron couldn’t help it, he smiled, then laughed. Then Harry laughed. It was a croaky, unpractised laugh but it was definitely a laugh, and then it was a hiccough, and then a breathy sob and finally, a long, low, keening wail and Harry’s head went forward, his hands grabbed at his face and, in an agony of loss, he wept. Ron scooted to Harry’s side, his arms folding around his broken friend, their heads burrowing into each other’s shoulders and they both cried. They cried for everyone who didn’t make it. For themselves. For lost magic and for memories of other times.

They cried together for an aeon and then, exhausted, as the sun set in bright phoenix flames through the sheet at the window, they fell asleep again, in every sense wrapped in each other, a long, undisturbed sleep through the dark of the Muggle night outside.

 

Ron woke first. He lay for several minutes with Harry’s head on his chest, thinking hard. He sensed more than saw when Harry’s eyes opened and for a little while longer they lay together, awake and listening to the new morning noises outside the window. Finally Ron took a deep breath.

“okay then, so what do you do for fun around here then?”

Harry flinched a little. “What, apart from the obvious you mean.”

“Harry, let’s just leave all that be for a while, okay? I get that you’re miserable. I get that all kinds of shit has gone on that I probably don’t want to know about and I get that you don’t want to come home with me. I get all that. But, let’s just pretend like it’s all normal for a while. I’m just this old friend come to visit okay. Even you can’t spend 24/7 in this room. Let’s go out, let’s do something, anything. All that other crap can wait. I just want to do something normal.”

“There’s a bagel stand on the corner. It’s good for breakfast,” said Harry. 

“Cool,” Ron said brightening considerably. “Breakfast it is.”

 

London streets in the first light greeted them with the same arrogant disregard as everyone else. The low sun was fighting off a chill mist and everything close was bright and white. They slipped into the anonymity of the early commuters and as they walked to the corner Ron looked at Harry: bright and white, Harry. The smell of coffee and bagels, of yesterday’s dust raised off the damp pavements, of the sun’s weak warmth and of Harry, the smell of Harry on Ron’s face and fingers, it all blended to something Ron felt he would never forget. 

They had a good morning, under the circumstances. They didn’t speak too much and what conversation there was revolved around Harry pointing out shops and bars, telling inoffensive tales about the shopkeepers, the pizza delivery boys and the postmen. They ended up in the park, the sun now bright and warming. They watched men and women in suits leaving unheeding trails through the dew on the silver grass. They fed the bagel crumbs to the ducks and then sat on a bench by the pond.

“okay, so you’re going to have to tell me,” said Ron. Harry looked at him quizzically. “The way I see it… I want you to come back with me to our world and you won’t. You want me to go and I won’t. So we have to talk. We can’t just go on crying and fighting and well, whatever all that other stuff yesterday was all about, we can’t go on like that and we’re kind of at an impasse. I just don’t think I can cry anymore okay? So we have to talk and you have to tell me what’s been going on… for you.” Harry sighed and then said,

“There’s not much to tell really,” and at that moment Ron’s heart skipped a beat because he knew his plan was working. “Where do you want me to start?”

Sitting side by side on the park bench, Harry began to tell Ron what had happened on the last night of The Final Battle. 

“He took everything away…” Harry face was blank, as though telling someone else’s story. “He was everything by the end. He was all round me, inside me even. It was…” When Harry faltered, Ron prompted.

“You mean at Godric’s Hollow? When we went back?” Ron knew his own trauma from that night was still not healed. He often woke in the timeless bits of the night, unable to stop the memories coming, reliving the terrible moment when he and Hermione had realised that Harry had been led into a trap. “We saw a light, inside the house. Oh shit, Harry, we thought you’d be safe in there, we thought we were protecting you. There were Death Eaters everywhere…” Ron stopped because the same sick panic of that night was swelling in his throat, he remembered the ripping sensation in his gut when the windows of Harry’s parent’s old house had blown out, shafts of platinum light had cut like razors into the darkness for miles, that same panic came again now in cold, gripping pulses.

“I felt like he was inside my skin… He was, I think, in a way…” Suddenly Harry grabbed Ron’s hand and crushed it, two sets of white knuckles flexed. “There wasn’t anybody else. There was no Dumbledore, no ghosts of mum and dad, not even you.”. Ron wanted to scream, _I was there, I was there, I was ripping the door apart with my bare hands to get to you._ "It was just me and him… and He was alive in me. He was on fire inside me.” Despite his blank stare Harry started to breathe hard, his iron grip on Ron’s hand tightened but he was shaking.

“Hey, mate, come on, you’re safe now. We’re in the park. I’m here.” Ron used his free hand to rub Harry’s back softly and slowly, something his mum had done for him when he was upset. Gods! How Ron missed his mum and dad.

Harry’s breathing slowed a little. 

“It was despair. He was despair. That was all that was left of him. I think he knew it was the end. The only thing he ever lived for was to live; all those things he did to live and he knew it was going to end. And then all that despair was in me. He tried to kill me by the sheer force of his will, he tried to kill me with hatred. He didn’t even use his wand, he just stepped inside me. And I don’t really know what happened then.” There was a slow, silver trail on the side of Harry’s face. He frowned and fell quiet for a while.

“The house collapsed, Harry. We thought he’d won.”

And Ron was remembering the frantic search through the rubble of James and Lily’s old house, every member of the Order of the Phoenix on their hands and knees digging in the dirt to find Harry, every one of them already grieving.

“He hadn’t!” Harry’s voice was firm in denial. “He hadn’t won. I killed him. I don’t know how, I don’t know what happened but when I came-to, I knew he was dead. I mean finally, completely... Gone from the world.” Ron was a little worried by the fierceness of the look on Harry’s face. “I knew he was dead, but…” Harry faltered again. Ron let him take his time. “…but so was I”

“What?” said Ron, incredulous. “Harry, I’ve seen some ghosts in my time…”

“I was dead, Ron. Dead to everything and everyone. I knew my magic had gone. I knew there was nothing left of me. Seventeen years I’d been nothing but His plaything. I was nothing to anybody but ‘The Boy Who Lived’, the ‘Saviour’ of the wizarding world, I was either the crazy nut-job or the Ministry of Magic poster boy. I was the boy who lived for all that…” On the verge of tears but still staring straight ahead, Harry spluttered, “…and nothing else.”

“That’s not true, Harry. It’s not true!”

“Don’t…” Harry dropped Ron’s hand and twisted his head away. They sat awkwardly for some time, Ron shifting on the bench which had become suddenly uncomfortable. 

“He was inside me, Ron. And when he was gone it was like all my insides were  scraped out with him.

“I’m a squib. I think I always was. I think all the magic I ever had was His. That’s what the connection was. That’s what he gave me when he killed my mum and dad. Dumbledore always said He ‘made’ me into His enemy by choosing me. I think he ‘made’ me a wizard. And now He’s gone... well, I’m not part of that world anymore.”

Ron wanted to protest but with an effort of will stayed quiet. He had to hear from Harry what had happened and he couldn’t do that if they argued or if either of them broke-down again. 

Ron bit his tongue while Harry related how he had woken up naked and badly hurt in dense foliage at the bottom of the garden. He had watched the search. He knew his magic was gone. He had turned away and walked all that night in a daze through the countryside, eventually picked up, after nearly being mown down by a truck driver on the way to London. He remembered only little details; the even pace of cat’s eyes flowing down the middle of the motorway, the scratching of the blanket the truck driver gave him to wrap round himself, the smell of oil and cigarettes. He never intended to return, to Godric’s Hollow, or to anywhere connected with his previous life. That was all he thought on his way to London: all his desire was to disappear and become a nothing. And he had succeeded.

As Harry’s story faltered and he became silent, still holding Ron’s hand but less tightly, Ron turned to look out over the park. There were people everywhere. Normal people doing normal things. It was painful when Harry spoke again

“He took some other part of me away, not just my magic. He filled me up with His hate. I’ve still got it in me now. I don’t know what to do with it.”

And neither did Ron. Ron had nothing to say which could change anything, so he said nothing. Although Harry had been gripping Ron’s hand the whole time, for the first time now, Ron gripped Harry’s hand back.

Something in Ron’s back pocket twitched and he shifted on the bench. Digging his free hand into the pocket he pulled out a chocolate frog. It had half melted and though it tried to hop around it managed only a few spasms on Ron’s palm. 

“Chocolate?” said Ron, offering it.

Without thinking Harry took the frog from Ron and popped it in his mouth. A look of surprise flashed across Harry’s face and then an expression which was so delicately balanced between pure joy and desperate sadness that Ron nearly burst into tears again. Again, there was a long silence but eventually Harry turned to Ron and said, almost shyly,

“You got any more of those?”

 

By the time they returned to Harry’s small room it was getting dark and London was bathed in a melancholy purple twilight, but Ron was much happier. Harry seemed so too; he was calmer. When they returned to the room it seemed to Ron a little larger, whiter, and the small piles of Harry’s things on the floor, his few clothes, half-tumbled from a cardboard box in the corner, these things seemed less poor. Harry had never had very much, although he could have afforded it; Ron too knew how to be happy with just a little. The room smelt of sunlight on sheets, though the sun was long gone, it smelt of soap and of Harry. The bare light bulb was warmer than it had seemed before.

Ron had to be careful: almost everything he wanted to say or ask demanded thought about the future and he was studiously trying to avoid facing Harry with decisions, or indeed, with the opportunity to send him away again. There were a couple of questions, however, which just couldn’t be avoided. Carefully, Ron began exploring the problem of what happened next.

“So, can I stay again tonight…? I mean, you haven’t got anything you er… need to do or, um… anyone to see?’

Ron was relieved beyond words when Harry smiled at the question.

“Course you can. I've put them off…” and he waved a small device with numbered buttons and some kind of screen in Ron’s direction, as if that explained what he’d done.

Ron didn’t stop to think on the fact that Harry’s reply included a plural. He wasn’t ready for that conversation yet.

Harry either dodged or hadn’t thought about the next question because he took off to the communal bathroom at the end of the hallway. Ron sat heavily on the bed. He was tired. The emotional toll of so many months of desperation, of finding Harry, the shock of rejection then intimacy and of feeling his way so delicately through the last few hours, all of it had been exhausting. There was a weight in his bones and a tightness behind his eyes. He sat just concentrating on his breathing for a few moments, staring at the floor, looking at nothing. When he focused his eyes again he saw the edge of a small cardboard box sticking out from under the bed. Absent-mindedly he leant down to push it back underneath but as he did so, something caught his eye. Reaching into the box and pushing dirty clothes to one side, he took hold of a narrow, black piece of wood and brought it out. It took a moment to realise what he was holding. A wand made of holly. It was split from top to base with a jagged crack out of which poked the flame-red strands of a feather. The wood and the feather both were burnt and blackened. It was a tortured wand, a twisted, scarred and cracked parody of the thing which Ron had known before. How safe he once felt when Harry had that wand in his hand. He stroked a finger over the loose and dirty fronds of the feather where they stuck through the wood. Although he was all cried-out, sadness filled him and closed his eyes. He put the wand back, suddenly aware all over again just how much work remained to be done.

Ron went to the bathroom when Harry got back and once he had splashed himself with cold water - the only kind to be had - and rejoined Harry, he had to deal with another, so far, unspoken question.

“And, erm… perhaps I best kip on the floor tonight you know. You had the floor last night after all.”

“Not for much of last night though eh?” said Harry with a slightly cruel smile. Ron felt a wave of guilt rushing from his toes to his head and he knew his freckles were currently being joined up by a flush of embarrassment.

“Look, mate, I’m really sorry about that,” he began earnestly. “I know it was a really shitty thing to do to take advantage of you like that but I swear I didn’t know what was going on until it was really going on, if you know what I mean. I was asleep and it kind of just happened.” 

Harry looked crestfallen, thick eyebrows knotted at the centre of his brow. 

“You mean, you didn’t enjoy it?” Ron didn’t know what to say. It had been strange beyond anything he had ever imagined and all the while they had been naked together he had felt a burning sense of shame battling with the other burning in his crotch. He didn’t know if that counted as ‘enjoying it’.

“Harry, I don’t know what to say. I mean, it’s not something I ever thought about before. It just kind of happened.”

“Liar!” said Harry. He said is simply and quietly but it was still enough to shock Ron. “You can’t tell me you never thought about it before.” There was a hardening in Harry’s voice, just slightly, just enough that someone who knew him as well as Ron could hear it; steely and slightly sibilant. They were facing each other across the bed and suddenly it felt to Ron that there was an element of confrontation in the way they stood there. He didn’t know where it had come from. “There’s things I need, Ron. Things I have to have and if I’m going to put off my clients so you can have somewhere to kip for the night then it’s the least you can do.” 

Ron flushed again, but this time angry. The idea of being compared to, let alone being a replacement for the trash that came here and paid for the use of that frail and beautiful body made him furious. But Harry was already pulling his thin top over his head and kicking off his trainers. “What’s the problem?” said Harry sensing the imminent eruption from Ron. “There didn’t seem to be any problem last night…” Ron winced. It was true, he’d done just what those other men had done. Harry stood across the bed in his underwear. “Look at me,” he said. And Ron looked at him. Harry slipped his pants down to the floor with a twitch of his hips and stood naked across the bed from Ron. For all that he had lost, for all the malnutrition, for all lack of magic in him, Harry was a powerful presence still. Ron couldn’t take his eyes off him. “You telling me you don’t want some of this?” said Harry, taunting. Harry ran bleached-wood fingers down his chest bumping the ridges of chest and stomach. He smoothed his palm over the soft, hairless mound of his pubis and circled the base of his cock and his balls and jiggled them in Ron‘s direction: seductive and obscene. Harry‘s cock was long and thin, paper-white, a small circle of pink showing at the tip where the skin opened. Normally his balls hung low in soft-stretched skin: now, squeezed, pushed forward, they shone in tight skin like plums. “You telling me you wouldn’t like me to get on the bed and slide your cock down my throat right now? Honestly?” Alongside the anger which had temporarily taken away Ron’s ability to speak, something else began to rise inside him too.

“Or maybe my arse…? Is that what you want? It’s a good arse you know…” Harry turned around, his backside pushed out and back towards Ron. It was as bony as the rest of him but still round and tight. Harry reached behind him and pulled his cheeks apart. A small dark pucker of skin winked at Ron, who swallowed hard. “You want to put it up me? Fuck me? Best fuck in West London I am. That’s what they reckon round here.”

“Harry…” Ron began, not sure what he was going to say but needing to speak. He was panic stricken by this performance but also by the fact that his cock was twitching and throbbing in his underwear. Harry cut him off.

“Watch,” said Harry, and put one hand briefly to his mouth and then reached back again. “This could be your cock in there,” he said as he slid a long finger into his arse and buried it knuckle-deep.

Then Harry turned and jumped onto the bed on all fours, his head six inches from Ron’s crotch. He looked up at Ron. Big green eyes, puppy-eyes, flicked from challenging to pleading with each long blink.

“Please Ron.” The flat of Harry’s hand reached out and cupped the wand-shaped bulge in Ron’s trousers. Ron’s batted the hand away. There was a sudden burst of fire in Harry’s eyes, his hand moved back, Ron flinched and suddenly everything that had been held in place by Ron’s plan burst into the room and they were on each other, fighting. Ron wrestled Harry onto the bed and held him down hard against the thin mattress. He gripped Harry’s wrists and pinned them to the pillow. Cords strained in Harry’s arms and his ribs twisted but Ron was on top of him, too heavy, too strong. Harry flipped his naked legs up into the air and wrapped them around Ron’s waist. Ron struggled against the lewd embrace he found himself in but now Harry had Ron’s arms tight. Harry’s upturned arse rubbed against the denim over Ron’s crotch.

“Harry! Stop this…” 

“No.” 

And Harry pulled Ron in towards him, his eyes burning, his mouth wet and open. Ron strained to keep their lips apart and for an eternity they were face to face, shaking with the tension of pulling against each other. Ron couldn’t even pretend any more as the steel-hard erection in his trousers rubbed roughly against Harry’s backside. Then Ron gave in, he relaxed and their open mouths plunged towards each other. Slippery, moist, dark, their kiss was a sudden cool shower of rain. Their grip on each other softened and all their breathing was twined round itself in their noses and mouths and in the wet spaces between their tongues.

“Truce?” said Ron between kisses. Harry nipped the end of Ron’s nose with his teeth.

“Tell me this isn’t what you want,” said Harry, moving his head so he was staring into Ron’s eyes.

“I want to hold you. I want to protect you. More than anything Harry…” Ron sighed as he gave in to the cliché. “I want to take you away from all this. Harry I…” For one heart-stopping moment, three words he had never said before were on the tip of his tongue. But Ron was so surprised at those words in his head that he swallowed them before they reached his mouth. 

“What?” said Harry, suddenly aware of Ron’s pensive look.

“I don’t want to be just another one of those men. I don’t want to be… just thinking about it makes me feel like some kind of perv.” Ron wondered if he had said the wrong thing. Harry turned his head on the pillow and looked away. There was a sudden and serious look on Harry’s face. Ron had a strong sense of _déjà vu_ , it was one of Harry’s looks, one of those expressions that he knew so intimately that it seemed a sudden intrusion of the real Harry into this bizarre scene, Harry was thinking hard. How many times had Ron seen that slight frown, the gentle biting of the bottom lip? 

Harry spoke very quietly.

“I’m not stupid you know…” Ron would have protested but Harry cut him off. “I’m not stupid. I don’t think all those men actually feel anything for me. I’m not looking for some kind of love substitute, you know. I know how it looks but it’s not that.” Harry was thoughtful again and Ron didn’t interrupt, he simply relaxed completely on top of his naked best friend. Harry still had his head turned to the window so Ron laid his head in the nook of Harry’s neck and lay still, listening to Harry’s breath, waiting for him to find the words to say whatever it was he was trying to get across to Ron. “I spent so long being the centre of the world, Ron. So many people looking at me, well, looking to me for some kind of salvation. All those years I had to be in control, all those years I had to bury the things I was feeling and the things I wanted to do. I was just a kid, Ron. All I wanted to do was play Quidditch and just… play. And then the war came and everyone expected me to be some kind of General, some kind of war hero, before I even knew who I was…” Ron wondered how they had got to this from the sexual wrestling of moments before but he was happy to let Harry meander through the telling. “I need something else now. I need to be the one who does what he’s told… no, I don’t quite mean that.” Again there was a long silence as Harry mulled over what he was trying to say. “I need to spend some time being controlled, being held, rather than doing the holding, I need to be led rather than doing the leading. It isn’t just about the war it’s just, I want to let other people…

“These men, I let them fuck me, or spank me or tie me up or whatever…” Ron flinched inside. “...because it feels good to be passive in the world. Am I making any sense?” It was a rhetorical question, he didn’t pause for an answer. “They’re not all bad either, they’re just guys, mainly they’re lonely, or they’re trapped with desires they don’t know what to do with. And sometimes, even when they hurt me, it helps. It’s not that I like being done, well, sometimes I do… I don’t know, its just something I need.” And that seemed to be the final word. Ron breathed deeply into Harry’s neck. 

“I love you Harry.” 

“I know.”

 

They lay there for hours, drifting in and out of sleep. Ron, fully-clothed, lying on top of Harry’s naked, fragile body, wrapping him and keep him safe against the drafts and who knew what else. Sirens, night-clubbers, lorries, car stereos, breaking glass, all the noises of the city night came and went outside. Rain fell against the dark glass of the window and dribbled like neon tears in tracks down the pane; the sound of its falling was the soft-beating wings of a flock of birds. Whatever thoughts they each had, they kept to themselves until at some undefined point in the earliest hours of the night when sleep and reality hold equal sway, Harry shifted under Ron and their eyes met.

“Please Ron, give me what I need.”

Something inside Ron softened and bled, and something else hardened and resolved. Ron sat up, he sat across Harry’s hips, his hands slid again to hold Harry’s hands down against the pillows so the thin chest arched and made a ribbed landscape. Ron felt a shudder like a chill run through Harry’s body and he felt Harry’s hips push up and squirm. Leaning forward but not loosening his grip, Ron licked at Harry’s face. Lips parted to receive a kiss but Ron avoided them, lapping instead at the pale cheek and soft eyelids, Harry moaned. _Never so close_ , thought Ron, _never so close I could see every pore_.

“Stay there,” said Ron, lifting off Harry and the bed. He felt somehow as if Harry had given him a permission, had allowed something new between them. Ron kicked off his shoes, slipped out of his jeans and pants and climbed again onto the bed, straddling Harry’s chest, his heavy cock fattening just a few inches from Harry’s face.

Green eyes widened and Harry leaned forward to take it but Ron pushed Harry’s head away. He teased. He swung his cock to Harry’s open mouth and wet tongue then pulled it away just before they touched. Ron was no expert but he responded to something in Harry’s expression: teasing him seemed to be the right thing to do. As his cock stiffened and rose almost vertical, the hood slipped back, the almost translucent skin tightened. He shifted until his balls hung low and swung over Harry’s mouth. “Go on then,” he said, his voice husky and rough, “lick my bollocks.” Harry’s tongue, practised and expert, pressed hot and wet into the folds of Ron’s sac. His bollocks rolled over Harry’s lips and chin as the tongue probed. Then Harry took one of Ron’s balls into his mouth and pulled gently, licked and tickled with his tongue. Ron moaned and his head fell back. He felt Harry’s hands claw around his thighs as Harry buried his face in his most intimate flesh. 

Harry moved and twisted and his tongue was deep in the fold of Ron’s crotch, one of Harry’s hands lifted and went to circle Ron’s pale cock. Skin slipped and the strawberry head became slick and dewy with leaking come. Ron shuddered and grabbed Harry’s head, pulling it hard into his balls, wiping the base of his cock over Harry’s eager mouth. Ron’s hips bucked, fucking the air, pressing the rubbery root of his cock against Harry‘s mouth, mashing Harry’s lips. Try as he might Ron couldn’t help but know he was being so rough, turning Harry on so wildly, because there was anger and frustration boiling just beneath his freckled skin. He didn’t like the thought but he chose not to pursue it.

Harry twisted again and he was suddenly further down the bed, under Ron’s arse. Harry grabbed quickly and pulled, giving Ron no time to react, and his long tongue pushed up into Ron’s arse; Ron yelped with surprise, the small room swam in mad parabolas around his head and everything in him was focused on the hot, slimy probing between his cheeks. Harry was doing something Ron had never imagined before, and Ron’s wide-eyed surprise didn’t disguise the fact that it shot sharp needles of desire through the base of his spine into his cock. Harry‘s free hand squeezed and milked Ron‘s erection. Between the sloppy noises of tongue and arse Ron heard a deeper tone from Harry, a murmur, almost a purr, and it was that noise, as much as the intensity and intimacy of Harry’s tongue moving in his arse that nearly pushed Ron over the edge. He lifted and moved. 

Against it’s straining, Ron pushed his cock downwards and, like a starving man, Harry swallowed it whole. The colours in Ron’s head were purple and chocolate; the sound of Harry’s murmuring, his choked whimpers, became a kind of music, like Phoenix-song, healing, haunting and a sound that thrilled through him into his bones.

Harry pulled away just a moment. Panting but determined and serious, he said,

“Fuck my face.”  Ron leaned forwards and feeling a surge of dominance like he had never known in their relationship, he plunged his cock down into Harry’s throat. Deep, so deep… Shaming though it was, inside Ron’s head he was shouting at Harry with every thrust, ‘this… is… for… all… it’s… cost… me… to… come… after… you…‘ Ron could feel the exposed head of his cock banging against the soft back of Harry’s throat, he felt his balls slap again and again against Harry’s upturned chin. He fucked the length of his cock in and out of Harry’s mouth. Harry gagged and spluttered, his stomach retched taught and slack but both of them knew that was no reason to stop. Ron fucked like a machine, holding Harry’s head in a firm claw. Harry’s hands gripped at Ron’s scrunching arse, pulling him in like he would eat Ron whole if only his mouth were big enough.

Ron pulled away and Harry fell rag-like back to the mattress, wet strands hanging off his chin. 

“Turn over,” said Ron firmly. “Show me that arse again.”

And Harry flipped himself. He buried his face in the pillow, stuck his arse into the air. “Fuck me,” he moaned. “Fuck me like a bitch Ron.” His words were foul and muffled by the pillow but Ron’s erection raged to hear them. “Stuff it up my cunt…” Ron knelt between Harry’s legs. “I wanna feel you in my guts Ron, fill me up…” Roughly, Ron pulled Harry’s upturned cheeks apart and spat into the crack, He smeared the gob over Harry’s hole and felt the urgency ripple through Harry as he pressed back against Ron’s hand. Ron muttered something to himself and suddenly Harry’s hole gaped wide and the wrinkled eye of muscle opened to surround a moist dark hole the size of a knut. Harry gasped and made a muffled mewing sound which sounded like both pleasure and surprise. Ron couldn’t help a wry grin. Kneeling up, Ron grabbed Harry’s hips and, wondering if he was doing this right, he pushed forward. Even with Harry‘s arse gaping as it was there were several jabs which missed the target and bent Ron‘s cock painfully against bone or hard flesh. Ron spat again into his hand and slicked his cock till it shone and finally… The grip and heat of Harry’s arse slipped inch by inch over the length of his cock. Ron had to hold Harry tight to stop his thrashing pulling them apart but Harry was pushing back too. There was one moment, somewhere at either the end or the beginning of the world, Ron wasn’t sure, when he was completely buried in Harry’s insides and in that suspended moment, he felt the room close in around them until it was just a skin for their two bodies, their one body. He had never felt so close to Harry, never so sure that above everyone else in the world, this was the person he loved, the person he would give up his own self for, the person he would die for if necessary. 

And then they fucked.

…Hunched over Harry like a dog on a bitch, Ron buried himself over and over. 

…Throwing Harry over and raising feet to shoulders, he leaned his whole weight into the soft paste of Harry’s guts. 

…Holding Harry’s ankles and spreading his legs wide apart, he pushed in as deep as possible. All the while Harry muttered, spat odd words, panted his desire into the stale air of the small room.

Ron rolled Harry up, pushing him into a foetal curl and knelt at his arse-end, fucking him sideways. Harry’s hands clawed at the sheets and always his eyes gripped Ron’s in a searing stare. Harry contorted and arched and spasmed under the assault of Ron’s cock in his arse. The bed rocked and squeaked alarmingly.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck me… fuck my cunt… ram me, Ron… Ron… Ron… fucksh mee…shhh… shhh” Breathing and speaking through his clenched teeth, Ron saw Harry’s spittle fly and at the same moment saw his eyes change, “shhhhreeeiiillll…shhsshhaarmm… shrrall…shhraissss…” With his eyes fixed somewhere on a point in eternity, Harry’s sibilant, urgent, incomprehensible words thrilled something in Ron’s blood. Ron hammered harder, feeling the pumping of his heart in his neck and temples, eyes wide at the sensation of being inside Harry and dazed by the sound of that strange, rare and undeniably magical language coming from Harry’s spitting mouth. It pushed a trigger somewhere in Ron: there was a tightening at the very root of his being.

“Harry, I love you, you mean,” _thrust,_ “scrawny,” _thrust_ , “beautiful,” _thrust,_ “bastard…” and with the kind of release only born of months of agony redeemed, Ron flooded out of himself into the heat of Harry’s guts and at the same time, like the world deflating, cum poured in gouts out of Harry’s cock onto his stomach and legs. 

“Shhhhhhhhhhhhssshhhhh…” said Harry, his chest heaving, his thin skin held in a twist of ecstasy.

And they collapsed on each other in a sweaty, sticky tumble of skin and cum and breath and damp hair, breathing hard yet barely sucking in enough to stay conscious, face to face breathing each other’s raw scent and left-over breath.

When he could speak Ron nuzzled into Harry’s neck, “So how do you say ‘fuck me’ in parseltongue?” and then had to explain to an astonished Harry what had happened. As if to deflect the impact of this revelation, so as not to have to think about what it meant, Harry shot back,

“And what exactly did you say just before you started fucking my arse?” Ron blushed and then shrugged.

“ _Alohomora,_ ” he confessed.

 

The next couple of days seemed easier. Perhaps because there was no more sex. Ron spent much of the time asleep and didn’t like to ask where Harry had been when he came back to the room some hours after Ron had woken up in the afternoon or early evening. They both skirted around questions of what would happen next, expertly understanding each other’s unspoken moods. Harry was still fractious from time to time, Ron still frustrated and sometimes angry. Twice in two days Ron told Harry again that he loved him, both times Harry pointedly didn’t say anything and became withdrawn and thoughtful. 

They spent some time wandering the streets of London. Every now and again Ron slipped his hand into Harry’s as they walked and Harry didn’t seem to mind. On those occasions Ron felt like all the air in London rushed past him in a swooping whirlwind and carried him to the top of the tallest buildings. Walking down some busy pavement like that, stealing occasional glances at Harry’s handsome profile, Ron felt something like pride although he couldn’t have said in what exactly. Harry, it was true, was too distant too often. There were things in Harry which had broken and Ron wasn’t blind to them, but there were tiny moments of tenderness too, just a look or a glancing touch, which Ron chose to understand as positive signs.

But Ron was thoughtful too. He was enjoying Harry’s tour of Muggle-London but he was not at home there. Everything he had given up, his friends, family, his whole wizarding life were still fresh and painful memories and now, with Harry completely and demonstrably alive, the burnt bridges of the last few months called shrilly to him. He dreamed of his mum and dad, of The Burrow, even of Fred and George! Home, for Ron, was more than a place, it was the sense he had of being himself. Home was an idea which encompassed everything that ought to be right and good in the world. He couldn’t remember a time when Harry hadn’t seemed a part of it, but he wasn’t all of it.

In his weaker moments Ron wondered if Harry could be all of it. Ron asked himself, could he stay here? Could he live as a Muggle, build a life with Harry away from everything else? The answer every time was no, not because he wouldn’t give it all up for Harry if he had to but because it wasn’t right. Of this he was becoming increasingly sure as the days passed.

As ever, Harry had money and Ron had none. This seemed as true in the Muggle world as it had been throughout their childhood. So it was Harry who bought them both hot chocolate in a small café in Earl’s Court. What bothered Ron now, when he allowed himself to think of it, was where the money came from. He also found himself wondering why Harry was so thin, so ill-looking. He clearly ate well, as much as Ron at least, which was saying something. It was mid-morning and Ron was feeling restless. A pair of ginger-haired boys passed in front of the plate glass window and Ron was so unsettled he almost leapt up yelling, ‘Fred, George!’ In reality he didn’t move or speak but as the two anonymous lads passed out of sight a wave of tiredness and sadness washed through him. He felt fractured. He looked at Harry over the top of his chocolate. Harry was staring out of the window lost in some inaccessible thought. Ron was becoming used to the shaved head and brightly visible scar, the newly chiselled jaw-line and thinner, more tense than ever lips; he was used to the increased glare in the green eyes. Even this broken version of Harry, scarred in so many new ways, was beautiful. This Harry, like the old, was one of the centres around which Ron’s life revolved. But, and Ron didn’t know how this could ever be resolved, Harry was apparently detached forever, by his own decision, from the other things in Ron’s life that made him whole and happy, his family and his life in that other world. Without thinking and without considering the consequences Ron said,

“So what do I have to do to make you come back with me?”

Harry’s eyes flashed briefly and then he sighed, apparently frustrated with the question. “No excuses this time Harry. There has to be a way. What’s it going to take, huh?” Ron was allowing just a little of his building frustration to edge his voice. “And I don’t want to hear about loosing your magic. We can fix that. I don’t believe all that crap about Voldemort being the reason you’re a wizard.” Harry flinched at the name but Ron didn’t back away from it. He didn’t enjoy turning that particular knife but there was some guilty satisfaction in it. 

“There’s nothing you can do Ron. Not you.” The unspoken part of Harry’s answer hung heavy between them. A difficult pause ensued. Harry’s voice had been very cold and Ron wondered if he’d made a mistake. 

“There’s got to be a way. Come back to The Burrow with me. Mum and Dad…” Ron faltered. “They nearly fucking adopted you for Merlin’s sake, Harry. You don’t know what they were like when they knew you’d gone. It was like one of us had died.” Ron realised he’d raised his voice a little too far and a couple of heads had turned. He leaned in close to Harry, whispering sharply, feeling his temper beginning to get the better of him. “Ginny,” he spat. “Ginny died that night. She died because she heard what was happening and she broke cover.” Harry’s eyes were large and locked on Ron’s, his lips pursed and a pulse visible at his temple. Ron knew the danger signs but he carried on, “She broke cover because she heard you were facing down Voldemort and she was coming to help, she was coming to help…”

Harry suddenly snapped.

“That’s - not - my - fault” he hissed and banged both his fists on the table. Suddenly there was screaming coming from all round them. Ron felt the tremor run through the floor and rattle the table, he put his hand down to steady his cup and saw not the rich brown chocolate he’d been enjoying but a dark red liquid bubbling in his cup. Women screamed and men yelled. Ron looked around; the whole café was shaking and blood-red stains were dripping from spilt and dropped cups, glasses full of it were smashing on the floor as people dropped them in fright. One woman fainted as she wiped her mouth and her hand came away bloody. “Not - my - fault!” said Harry again, louder. Tables began to move as the floor shook and there were ominous cracking noises in the wall. Harry was trembling too: he shook like he was having a fit. Ron knew he had to do something. He grabbed Harry’s balled fists and pushed his face right into Harry’s unseeing eyes. 

“Harry!” he demanded, “Harry! Stop it.” 

The deep rumbling continued all around them like an organ’s lowest note, just under the threshold of fear. “okay, mate, look I’m sorry. You’ve got to calm down, okay?” Still there was no flicker of recognition in Harry’s eyes, no abating of the small earthquake going on around them. People were beginning to flee. Ron didn’t know what else to do. He leaned forwards and kissed Harry firmly on the mouth. He pressed his tongue against Harry’s closed lips and they parted. Like a man waking from a nightmare Harry started and breathed sharply into Ron’s mouth. His eyes closed and the trembling faded slightly. He kissed Ron back, clamping his hand to the back of Ron’s head and pulling their mouths together almost painfully. Ron had a sense now of what was necessary. He grabbed Harry back, bony cheeks between his hands. He took charge of the kiss, holding Harry’s face and pushing his tongue deep into that moist, heated throat… and something in Harry seemed to give way, he became loose and pliable in Ron’s hands and despite Ron’s awareness of the difficulty of the situation he couldn’t help but feel a stirring in his jeans. 

Then there were four almighty cracks loud enough to split eardrums and Ron knew they were in trouble. The unmistakable sound of Apparition meant only one thing. There was nothing Ron wanted more than to take Harry back to the world he belonged in but Ron knew, without doubt, that being brought back forcibly by a crack team from the Ministry of Magic wasn’t the way it should happen. Ron knew that within seconds they were going to be confronted with at least two wizards from the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, an Obliviator, a Healer, maybe a couple of assistants and probably, these days, an Auror as well. He grabbed Harry by a handful of t-shirt and pulled him up from the table and towards the door.

Ron ran, pushing his way through the crowd of Muggles also trying to escape the café. Ron’s fist tightened on the knot of t-shirt cotton and Harry followed, blurry-eyed and not quite understanding. The first breath of fresh air outside the café was a welcome relief but Ron knew the squad from the Ministry of Magic would be on them in seconds if he couldn’t keep moving. Stealing a glance back through the window of the café he could already see whorls of crimson and aquamarine robes, strange hats and the occasional shower of sparks among the crowd still inside. Ron tumbled with Harry in tow out of the side street and onto the busy Warwick Road, not far from Earl’s Court itself. Harry’s legs seemed wobbly and heavy under him and Ron nearly carried him round the corner, attracting far too many stares from passing Muggles to feel comfortable. Ron swore at Harry but more for his own benefit. He could see that his words weren’t going to penetrate Harry’s dazed, slightly surprised look. Knowing at any moment he was going to feel the instant leaden sensation of a stunning spell hitting him in the back, he took a deep breath and manhandled Harry out into the road, dodging the cars and giving back as much foul language as was thrown at him while cars braked and swerved to avoid them. What he wouldn’t give for Harry’s cloak right now he thought as they got to the middle of the road, realising they could be seen from every direction.

He chanced a look back and was horrified to see a large man in a green hat and suspiciously long coat standing at the corner they had just turned. The wizard was looking the wrong way but it wouldn’t be long before he saw them. Summoning all his remaining energy he hauled Harry across the road and dashed down a road at the side of Earl’s Court. It was quieter and there was less traffic. Ron realised that if he continued to pull Harry around here they would be even more conspicuous than on the main road, so he let go his grip.

“Harry,” he hissed, as if there was a danger of being overheard. “Harry, we’ve got to get out of here, somewhere safe.” Harry’s face registered a bemused surprise and he looked directly into Ron’s eyes as if realising he was awake after a long dream. “Harry? Can you hear me?” Harry nodded and then suddenly gripped his temple and winced. Ron felt a flicker of the old panic flood through him until he realised that Harry wasn’t holding his hand to his scar. 

“Headache.” said Harry in a gruff voice.

“That’s fine. Good. I mean, I’m sorry about that, but this is more important Harry, we have to get going. Just follow me okay? I’ll keep you safe.” As he said it Ron wished hard that he had any kind of plan to justify that claim. For now it had to be enough to get Harry moving under his own steam. 

Then Ron felt it too: a sudden, blinding interior scream of a headache that shot through his temple and down the side of his jaw. Ron had been in enough scrapes during the war to know that the whole area was being probed for magic. Somewhere a wizard was using an aurascope and the two of them would show up like flares over a dark sea. 

“Come on Harry, NOW!” The unexpected note of command in Ron’s voice seemed to do the trick. Harry began to stumble after him. Ron weighed the situation as they hurried down the narrow street. The squad at the café would be busy tidying up the physical mess, and obliviating the memories of all the Muggles who had been in the vicinity but why? Ron’s first reactions had been instinctual, but now he had a moment to think it seemed clear that whatever Harry had done or caused in the café must have seemed to someone at the Ministry like Dark Magic. That alone gave Ron pause. They must know by now that whatever it was Harry had done had been caused by a wizard and they must know that there weren’t any wizards in the café apart from themselves. So by now, a team would be spreading out with aurascopes to track them down. Ron had always struggled with wandless magic and he had no wand. To attempt to create some kind of shield would more than likely send up a beacon to show their position rather than provide cover.  Their only option was slip away as quickly and as quietly as possible. 

They were walking fast now alongside some ancient iron railings and a long, tall, red-brick building with a huge pointed construction at one end. Some vague memory slotted the word ‘Church’ into Ron’s brain and the idea that it might be a quiet place to catch their breath but at that moment he heard a man’s voice, not too far behind. 

“Hey, you two. Stop right there.”

Ron ducked immediately and a shower of green sparks bounced off the railings. He grabbed Harry’s arm and again they were running. Had he thought about it more clearly he might have realised that the church was no longer the sanctuary it might have been. It was in fact a dead-end. 

Bursting into the cool air of the church, into an atmosphere of dust and hush, Ron felt suddenly intrusive and he quickly scanned the empty building. Over to one side he saw a small wooden door and pushed and tugged Harry towards it. They were almost there when there was a crash from the direction they had come from.

“Stand!” said the same voice again. “I won’t miss from this range.” Ron felt himself collapsing inside. There was no point in trying to go further, this was most likely a highly trained Auror; they didn’t stand a chance. He turned to face the Ministry official and put himself in front of Harry who seemed to have come to a blank stand-still now that Ron wasn’t telling him what to do.

“You!” said a suddenly amazed voice. “Ron? Oh for pity’s sake, tell me it wasn’t you in that café?”

For a moment Ron was too shocked to speak.

“Neville?!”

The colourful wizard in front of them, wand raised, slightly puffed and much larger than Ron remembered, was one of the most loyal friends Ron had ever had. Once. 

Neville relaxed his pose slightly but, Ron noticed, didn't lower his wand. There was a tense moment. There had been a time, at school, when even with his always-broken wand, Ron wouldn’t have thought twice about taking on Neville Longbottom. He’d just never had the need or the inclination. But things were different now. Neville, so Ron had heard although not witnessed for himself, had come into his own as a Healer and surprisingly powerful wizard. Gone were the days when he was the butt of every joke and could be guaranteed to trip over his own robes before getting the words of a spell out of his mouth. Ron’s thoughts went into a rather unhelpful ironic nose-dive: not the least tricky of situations, he thought.

“Ron, I’m sorry my old friend but I don’t have a lot of choice here. You’re going to have to come back with me, willingly or not.” There was a note in Neville’s voices which, although not unkind, told Ron all he needed to know about the truth of what he’d heard. Neville was a different kind of creature altogether now. 

“Neville, you don’t understand, it wasn’t me at the café I swear. Please Neville I need some help here.” Ron had no idea how that kind of plea would go down but he had precious little by way of options left.

“Who’s that?” said Neville flicking with his wand as if gesturing Ron out of the way. Instinctively Ron’s arms went out to form a barrier between Neville and Harry but he felt Harry step to one side. Ron expected an explosive reaction, surprise perhaps, amazement, or shock. “Who are you?” said Neville and Ron did a quick double take behind him. As he saw Harry standing in the darkened, softening air of the church, steely streaks of light from the windows criss-crossing his bare scalp and motes of dust forming bars of solid light at his shoulders, he realised at once how different Harry was now to the last time he had been seen by a wizard.

Harry brushed past Ron’s still outstretched arms and stepped toward Neville. Ron didn’t need an auroscope now to tell he was in the presence of a powerful wizard. The air around Harry almost crackled with magic, raw and untamed, the kind of magic that wizard children produce before they know what to do with it. Neville clearly felt it too.

“Now, now,” said Neville, a little unnerved perhaps, “that’s close enough. Just tell me who you are.” Harry kept stepping closer towards Neville a curious, half-disbelieving, half-smile on his face. “Ron? Who is this please?”

Then Harry stepped into another shaft of light and the silvery flesh of his scar caught fire in it. 

“Hello Neville,” said Harry.

“Sweet Merlin, no!” Neville’s eyes whitened and his wand lowered as he forgot, for an instant, just why there were all there. Something between joy and terror, passed over Neville’s face. “Sweet Merlin,” he said again and the look on his face resolved into one which Ron had never before seen on the face of any another person: a sweet, infinite compassion that made Ron think that if he ever needed to be healed, this man would be able to do it with a look. Neville raised a thick-fingered hand to Harry’s face and cupped his jaw with an unexpected gentleness and for a moment they just stared at each other, Neville shaking his head ever so slightly.

Then Harry made a strange noise deep in his throat, a gulping that came out as,

“Mmphh.” Then he cried out in pain and Harry grabbed his stomach as if he’d been punched.

Something in the air told Ron that Harry was losing it. 

“Neville!” he yelled as Harry sunk to his knees. Suddenly the terracotta tiles which made up the floor cracked and flew spinning into the air. Quicker than Ron would have believed possible, Neville had his wand level and was muttering to himself. As hundreds of tiles exploded and flew apart in a thousand deadly-sharp pieces of clay shrapnel, Neville bought his wand around with a calm flourish and the pieces stopped in mid-air. They hovered for a second and then fell to the floor as harmless pebbles. Harry slumped, face down, his nose squashed against the mortar and grit now covering the floor. Ron and Neville rushed to him as one. They rolled Harry onto Ron’s knees and saw he was barely conscious. Neville took off his coat and lowered it almost reverentially over Harry’s limp form. Ron grabbed Neville’s hand and their eye’s locked across Harry’s head.

“You can’t let them take him back Neville. He’s too fragile. He doesn’t want it. Believe me, I’ve been trying. Not like this. I’ll bring him back I promise. I’ll bring him back. But don’t let them take him today. There’s so much…” Ron stopped, knowing that whatever he said from here on wasn’t going to change Neville’s mind. That was all he could say, now it was up to a dear old friend who’d probably been reading _The Daily Prophet_ for the last six months and probably thought Ron was as mad as a Cornish Pixie. Neville lifted his head and stared a moment into the tall dark vaults above them, then he smiled sadly.

“You did it then,” Neville said quietly. “You found him.”

“Yes,” said Ron simply. With that single word, here in the presence of someone from the ‘real’ world, the world he belonged to, Ron realised just what could be if Harry could be healed and brought back. The Burrow, family and friends, Hogwarts, The Three Broomsticks, Quidditch, all those things that made Harry and Ron who they were could be theirs again, together.

“I’ve made a choice,” said Neville, suddenly very grave. “I’ve chosen to trust you, Ron Weasley. Because you always were a good guy and I’m choosing to believe you still are and because, well, just because of everything.” Ron felt his throat tighten and he couldn’t quite believe he was having to fight back tears hearing this. “The others will be here pretty sharpish, especially after that little display. I’ll shield this place. Don’t know what I’ll say to them yet but I’ll think of something. You’re going to have to stay here and look after him, after Harry,” the name seemed to stick a little in Neville’s throat, “at least till dark okay?” Ron was in something of a daze himself now. “okay Ron?”

“Yes, sorry, till dark. Neville - thank you. For everything.”

“I know you won’t let me down Ron but for Merlin’s sake, bring him home soon. He’s not well. You don’t have to be a healer to see that. Bring him home. Bring him to me and I’ll put him right if it’s the last thing I do on this earth.” There was a surprising steel under Neville’s voice and Ron looked at him closely. Something had broken and reformed in this man, like a bone which is broken to reknit itself more strongly. They manoeuvred Harry into one of the pews where he drowsed under Neville’s coat. Neville and Ron shook hands in silence and Neville looked again at Harry, a strange expression on his face. 

“He needs to be loved, Ron,” Neville said at length, and with that he strode off down the aisle of the church to head off the other wizards from the Ministry. At the door he paused and turned back. He called to Ron,

“When he wakes up… when he wakes up tell him I know it could have been me. Tell him Dumbledore told me and I’m sorry.” And then he was gone.

 

Ron stared after him for a while, feeling suddenly very small in the vast dry space. After six months of isolation, after everything that had happened since he had found Harry, it pained him to watch Neville leave after only a few minutes. There were so many things he wanted to say and ask, but mainly he had wanted Neville to stay. He had wanted to ask for help. He felt ridiculously out of his depth and home seemed such a long way away.

“It hurts Harry, it really hurts,” he said softly to the beautiful, half-conscious young man lying across his lap. Then he sighed and more resolutely he took Harry by the shoulders. "Come on,” he said, and began to get Harry to his feet.

With Harry’s arm over his neck and one of Ron’s arms wrapped around Harry’s waist Ron manoeuvred them to the small door at the side of the main aisle of the church. He tried it’s twisted iron handle and found it was open. He wasn’t sure where they were going but if Neville was going to shield this place he felt it would be good to be as deep into it as possible. Behind the door was a narrow set of stone steps which lifted out of view in a tight spiral. Taking most of Harry’s weight, Ron began the difficult process of moving them upwards. Ancient stone scraped his elbows and knuckles. The stairs were just a little too narrow for two and Ron had to keep Harry at a diagonal. The darkness drew in around them as they turned the first arc of the spiral and Ron was beginning to feel the stress and exhaustion building up in his bones. At one point, he felt a fuzzy version of the same headache he felt earlier and guessed that the ‘others’ had arrived just as Neville had predicted. Ron wished hard for Neville’s shielding to hold and paused for a minute but there was no noise from the church below. 

Eventually, the stairs opened out into a small square room with stone walls and a wobbly wooden floor. From the centre of the ceiling hung six ropes, each ending with a bulbous felt covering which looked to Ron like an inverted bulrush. The walls were covered in flaking whitewash, dirt and cobwebs but Ron allowed them both to fall against them and to stagger down to a sitting position on the floorboards. He sat with Harry in his arms, the shaved head resting on Ron’s shoulder and Ron’s chin being tickled by the stubble.

There was a small leaded window high up in the walls. That would be enough to see when darkness came. This was far enough. 

 

 

Ron woke up. There was still light coming in through the window. As he looked he realised it was a different quality of light: brighter and warmer. His eyes were sore but not as much as his back and the bones of his arse. _Shit_ , he thought, as he realised they had slept the night through. Harry had moved and now slept with his head in Ron’s lap. Fragile as porcelain, Harry’s eyelids flickered but did not open. Ron wondered what dreams came now. He remembered Harry’s nightmare’s at school, how Harry would wake shouting and screaming, almost in tears from the pain in his scar, and Ron wished that he had then had the courage to take Harry in his arms and hold him. Now, he simply stroked Harry’s scalp, delaying the inevitable moment when he would have to wake him and bring him back to what seemed like a living nightmare.

“Wake up,” he said softly, still stroking Harry’s face. “Time to wake up Harry.” Harry woke with a violent start and a sucking breath, his eyes immediately wide and staring. Ron soothed him. “Shhh…, Harry, it’s only me, remember? It’s morning okay?” Harry seemed a little dazed but he heaved himself from Ron’s lap and sat upright against the wall.

“Yeah. Sorry,” he said, rubbing his eyes. “Er, where are we Ron?” There was something new in Harry’s voice, some tone of the old Harry. Ron’s heart lifted in his chest.

“We’re in a church,” said Ron. “How much do you remember about last night?” 

“I remember…” There was a painful silence as Harry searched his memories and looked confused and awkward. “Hot chocolate? I remember hot chocolate.” Ron sighed and started on an explanation of everything that had happened. 

Harry was visibly shocked and Ron wasn’t sure he was entirely believing. When Ron told him that it was Neville Longbottom who had both found them and protected them Harry looked genuinely frightened. 

“Don’t worry,” said Ron, “he’s not going to tell anyone he’s seen you. Don’t worry.” As he was saying it Ron remembered Neville’s injunction ‘he needs to be loved’. “You know,” said Ron tentatively, “Neville could help. You should have seen him Harry, he’s nothing like he was at school.”

Harry turned his head away,

“I’m not going back,” he said, firmly and quietly. Ron sighed inside but after the previous evening he wasn’t about to provoke Harry again.

“Yesterday, in the café,” he began cautiously, “you said there was nothing I could do, me specifically. What did you mean?” Harry looked at the floor.

“I’m sorry,” Harry said at last. “I remember that: it sounds nasty now. I didn’t mean to be hurtful. It’s just it’s not you. You can’t give me what I need.” 

“I think you’re wrong,” said Ron, more strongly now. “You will come back with me. But I know it won’t be because I ask you to. It’ll be because I tell you to.” Harry looked at Ron, surprised. “I’m not going to tell you to come back with me right now, although I could. I’m going to prove to you that  I am the person who can give you what you need.” Ron was standing up, unfurling bones and muscles that screamed against their night of cramped-up sleep but he didn’t show Harry his discomfort. Ron’s long shadow fell over Harry’s white face and big green eyes looked up at him, still surprised but perhaps also hopeful. “Let’s face it Harry. I’m your best friend, I’m as good as your brother, it seems I’ve somehow also become your lover but you don’t know who you are any more do you?”

“No,” said Harry simply. 

“Well I do. And for now, that’s all that matters. And if I have to _be_ you _for_ you, that’s what I’m going to do.” And as he was speaking, all the unformed thoughts and frustrations he’d had, trying to work out how to get Harry back were coming together in his head. It wasn’t love Harry was looking for in that procession of men through his squalid little room, it was control. Harry couldn’t take control for himself, Voldemort’s despair had left him an empty shell, a husk of a person, so he looked to others to control him. He was thrashing around, looking for security. “All those other men. That stops now, okay?” It sounded firmer than Ron had meant it to because his anger slipped unexpectedly into his voice but Harry seemed to respond well.

“okay.” said Harry.

“From now on I’ll give you what you’ve been looking for from them.” Ron knew he was on the right path now, and as he said the words he felt a giddy urge to smile and cry and yell all at the same time, but he didn’t “but the difference is that I love you, okay?”

“okay.” said Harry.

“And I want to be clear about that,” said Ron, a lump still swelling in his throat, “because that’s what makes me different to them. I’m doing this for you. They were doing it for themselves. I’m going to control you Harry, in bed and out of it, but I’m doing it for you, so that you can eventually do it for yourself. That’s what you have to accept.” Ron took a deep breath. “okay?”

“okay.”

“Good. Now lets go and get cleaned up.” Ron hauled Harry roughly to his feet and ushered him out of the bell chamber, down the spiral staircase and out of the church.

 

They climbed the narrow stairs to Harry’s landing. Instead of turning right at the top, Ron pushed Harry to his left, towards the small wooden door of the shared bathroom. It was a small room with not much space for the two of them. The lino was cracked and flapping up at the edges: the porcelain of the small Victorian sink and toilet was crazed and tinged grey. Ron shot the loose, half-painted bolt on the inside of the door and the brass knob tinkled in its loose collar. 

"Strip off,” said Ron, nervousness and excitement mixing in his voice like gravel. “I want to look at you.” Obediently Harry pulled up his black t-shirt and as he wrestled it over his head the white skin of his stomach and chest flexed and slipped over bone and tight, flat muscles. The buckle of Harry’s jeans chinked and with a hiss the leather pulled through belt-loops. Ron absorbed every detail. Until now his fumbling and heated encounters with Harry’s body had been blind rushes of sensation and desire. Now, having taken a measure of control of the situation, Ron felt easier. He wanted to take his time, to look and feel and taste at a slower pace. Every twist of muscle, every tiny noise of fabric over skin, of leather slipping through denim, every little detail he noticed and each one wound up the stiff root between his legs tighter and tighter. The button of Harry’s jeans popped; they fell like sails in a sudden calm, wrinkling round his ankles and revealing a long, hairless expanse of shaved thigh and calf, plastic and firm, full of wire and knotted bone. Harry stepped out of the jeans and kicked off his trainers. He bent to pull off holed socks then straightened, wearing only his pants, a slightly wondering expression on his face, his tongued tipped to his top lip. 

“Stop a moment," said Ron. Harry stood a little straighter, completely passive, lowering his eyes slightly.

Ron stepped as far back as he could in the small space. He drank in the sight of Harry, naked except for a pair of white briefs: the waistband hung in a low curve like a garland between Harry’s hips, the soft mound of Harry’s stomach disappeared underneath, just rising enough to make a promise of the soft mound lower down, the grooves that topped Harry’s thighs gapped behind the fabric making inviting channels. The soft cotton rounded out over Harry’s cock which lay to the left, heavy and thickening but not yet hard. Staring at Harry’s crotch this closely, Ron could see the gentle pulse in Harry’s cock lifting the white cotton. Somewhere at the back of his head Ron was also aware that Harry seemed to be drawing some kind of power from being admired, from being the object of Ron’s attention.

Eventually Ron had enough of looking. Feeling the strangeness of it all over again, he stepped forward and pushed his fingertips under the waistband of Harry’s briefs. There was soft, hot skin over hard bone, smooth and hairless: dry. Slightly further down and his fingers bumped the firm lump of Harry’s cock and Ron tickled it out from where it rested until it was wrapped in his hand: then he squeezed. Harry gasped and his knees moved slightly, suddenly he was looking into Ron’s face, their lips only inches apart, a pleading in Harry’s eyes wrinkled his forehead. Ron squeezed harder and Harry flinched and moaned at the same time, loosening all over and leaning in so his head rested on Ron’s shoulder. 

Harry’s cock began pumping up. In Ron’s hand, contained with a soft skin, blood pulsed and gristle tightened until Harry’s cock was a hard spike wrapped in satin. Ron squeezed hard enough to hurt and Harry whimpered into his shoulder. And a thrill ran through Ron as he realised he could do this.

“Yes,” said Harry simply. “Yes.”

Ron shifted his hand and his thumb brushed the top of Harry’s cock, smearing a drop of slimy come it found there. Ron lifted his hand away and fed Harry his own dribbles, pushing the slick thumb between Harry’s lips. 

The wet heat inside Harry’s mouth fired something in Ron and he grabbed Harry in a hard, rough embrace, forcing Harry’s mouth wide with his tongue. Both their mouths filled with saliva and the faint taste of Harry’s come. Ron crushed Harry’s thin body to his and with a spare hand he yanked at Harry’s briefs until they fell. One hand then on Harry’s arse and one his back Ron pulled the naked Harry into him as if they might melt into one flesh. Something in Ron’s chest growled and he felt an almost overwhelming desire to snap Harry in half, to break him. Ron’s cock now strained against its confinement and pressed roughly into Harry’s unprotected groin, mashing Harry’s cock at a painful angle that only seemed to set Harry whimpering and probing more fiercely into Ron’s mouth. Ron let go momentarily and then took Harry’s head in his hands, one hand round Harry’s neck, the other  gripping the stubbled back. He forced Harry’s bright green eyes to meet his and began lapping at the smooth face, licking with the flat of his tongue, probing occasionally into Harry’s open mouth. 

“You are going to do exactly what I tell you, aren’t you?” Said Ron, breathless. Harry nodded as vigorously as he could in Ron’s tight grip. Ron dribbled saliva into Harry’s open mouth and Harry drank it down like a parched man. “Anything at all.” Harry nodded again. Ron spat into Harry’s face, most going into Harry’s swallowing mouth, some spraying across his face and Ron smeared it further with his tongue. Then he dropped Harry and let him stumble. “Kneel down and don‘t speak.” Harry slumped to his knees, his face still turned up, open and eager like a well-trained dog.

Ron took a long, low breath that stuttered in his throat.

“Hands behind your back,” Ron snapped and Harry’s hands slipped behind him. “Now get my cock out.” Harry bent forwards at the waist, a thin inward crease across his stomach as he did so. He bared his teeth and took hold of the top of the jeans’ fly and then pulled back and down. One by one the buttons popped and Ron’s jeans split open, his crotch heaved as the pressure lifted slightly. Then Harry was working on his briefs: the touch of Harry’s lips and nose against his stomach boiled Ron’s insides. Finally, after much tugging and several attempts Ron’s cock shot upwards and out, free of his underwear, bouncing in front of Harry’s face. Obediently Harry didn’t go beyond his instructions, he sat there, his half-open mouth just a little way from the creamy, freckled skin of Ron’s erection.

Harry looked small down there. His face, a background to Ron’s hard cock as he looked down, seemed fragile and weak. Ron was feeling things stir inside him that before, if he had ever felt them, he would have pressed back down with a shudder. He felt powerful and strong and he began to realise he was enjoying this servile and shrunken Harry kneeling in front of him. All those years when he’d been the follower, bending his will to Harry’s, giving up his own desires to follow Harry into adventure and eventually into war; now he was in charge. The long pause seemed to be frustrating Harry to breaking point. Harry’s lips were moving slightly, as if begging to be fed with cock. Ron was sure he could see the word ‘please’ forming in Harry’s head and on his lips over and over, but good little slave that he was, Harry didn’t once let it slip out loud. Ron tried to trick him. 

“You want this? You want to swallow my prick yeah?” Though Harry nodded hard and fast, he said nothing. “How much do you want it?” Again, Harry refused to speak, he simply screwed up his face in a frenzy of pleading and opened his mouth wide allowing a wet tongue to fall out, flat and inviting. Harry was almost jigging up and down now, like a child that knows a treat is coming, wanting it bad.

Then Ron let it flow. A stream of hot gold gushed out of him and splashed over Harry’s upturned face. Harry’s eyes and mouth flooded, his skin shone and the smell of warm oceans flooded Ron’s senses. Piss cascaded off Harry’s face, down the cords of his neck, splashed off his collar bones and into his valleys and grooves: he steamed with gold in the bathroom’s cool air. Unbelievably Harry was smiling. A kind of blissful smile glazed his eyes and swept the tension out of his face, melting his expression. 

And Ron laughed. Not cruelly, not as though this were a joke, he just laughed.

“You are going to be my bitch, Harry Potter.”

And as the last few drops sprayed out of him Ron thrust forward and stuffed the whole thickness of his cock between Harry’s lips and into his throat. He grabbed at Harry’s head. Harry grabbed and clawed at Ron’s thighs and for every hunching thrust pushing into and spreading the soft tissue of Harry’s throat, Harry responded in kind, opening, gagging and retching but pressing his mouth further and further into Ron’s rough hairs. Like a sword-swallower, Harry’s throat bloated and widened to accommodate Ron from tip to balls. Ron fucked him hard in the face, spitting obscenities. He stumbled forwards, knocking Harry off his haunches backing him against the side of the bath where Ron fucked until Harry’s head banged on the loose plastic. Ron could feel it building inside him, felt as though his cock were a stopped hose ready to blow and with all the self-control he could muster he finally stepped back and away.  Harry slumped on the floor, wet, naked, panting, holding himself up on one arm, saliva running in strings from his open mouth.

“I’m going to fuck you now. I’m going to get inside the deepest part of you. But not here.” Ron told Harry to shower quickly and come to his room, then turned and unlocked the door leaving Harry to pick himself up weakly from the floor.

 

Inside ten minutes Harry came through the door of the small room, clutching not wearing his clothes, his skin looked pinker and fresher than Ron had seen it in a long while. He brought with him the smell of jasmine. 

Ron sat propped on the bed, naked, his wand in his hand.

“You’re beautiful,” he said as Harry stepped into the room. It was a statement of fact. He raised his wand and, for the first time in a while, Harry looked discomforted " _Wingardium leviosa,"_ he said with a flourish and Harry dropped his clothes as he felt his body lift a foot in the air. Ron made a gentle turn with his wand and Harry spun slowly once, all the way round. Then a more intricate twist and turn of the wrist and Harry, in mid-air, spun onto his back and floated towards Ron until he hovered, horizontal in the centre of the room, his feet towards Ron. A slight flick left and right and Harry’s legs opened and his knees raised. The perfect, round globes of his arse tightened and spread and the small brown nut of wrinkled skin between his cheeks was exposed. 

Ron swung himself off the bed. Harry was hanging at exactly the right height that as Ron walked around him he could trail his fingertips over the prone body, feel the bumps and ridges of Harry’s stomach and ribs, slide over the smooth and trembling breastbone, trace the hard but brittle line of Harry’s jaw. Ron rubbed Harry’s lips with his thumb then turned Harry’s head on its side so his mouth came level with Ron’s cock. He let Harry suckle on it for a while, both of them calmly allowing the warm sensations to ripple over them. He shifted a little and Harry nuzzled into his balls, tonguing and probing. A flat gesture with his wand and Harry sank a few inches in the air, as if his bed of invisible clouds had lost some air. 

“Remember this?“ said Ron, bending to hiss into Harry’s ear. “I told you, you could fly! Now eat me.” Ron stood up, stepped over Harry’s face and planting his feet slightly apart he reached behind to pull his cheeks apart and let Harry’s mouth clamp eagerly around his arse. Feeling Harry’s long tongue push and writhe into his backside, Ron’s eyes half-closed and he let himself dissolve as the warm, gut-deep, and shivery sensation filled him from the bottom up. Harry ate his arse like he was making love to it, pushing his face deeper and deeper between Ron’s cheeks until Ron’s legs began to tremble. He lifted off and turned, bent to kiss and lick at Harry’s now slightly puffed lips and felt his own heat, smelt his own musk rising from Harry’s face.

Ron walked round Harry once more then sat on the bed, elbows on his knees, Harry’s opened arse cheeks directly in front of him. Ron had time now. He had all the time in the world. He wanted to play with this new toy, this new Harry who offered himself so completely. Suddenly he was remembering all kinds of magic, the kind of magic he read about as a teenager in magazines hidden under his mattress. It was a heady sensation having another human body laid out like this. His head was spinning with an unaccustomed feeling of power, matched with a nurturing, embracing feeling that had never been stronger in him.

Ron’s long fingers reached out and touched Harry’s hole. It quivered and Harry gasped. Ron traced a the puckered circle, pressed lightly and felt its give and saw it blink, one-eyed. Ron pressed the tip of his wand to Harry’s arse. 

“ _Ectolubricus,”_ he muttered and a bright, silver thread oozed from the end of his wand. He smeared it slowly over the whole of Harry’s backside and then, still oozing, he pushed the tip of his wand into Harry’s arse and let it fill slowly with the slimy stuff. Harry still didn’t speak.

“Mmmmmph,” moaned Harry, twisting slightly on his bed of air, pressing his arse ever so slightly further toward Ron, raising and parting his legs further. Ron removed his wand and let the last heavy drops fall over Harry’s balls. He reached forward then and took Harry’s slick bollocks in his hand, they hung low and loose over the rubbery tube running between the base of his cock and his arse. Ron rolled them and squeezed a little, let them slip through and around his fingers. He pulled and Harry shivered and clenched.

“Ah!” said Harry, half a gasp of pleasure, half of pain.

“ _Atractus,”_ said Ron. He chose to sit back more comfortably on the bed because as his wand moved, gripped by a magical connection, Harry’s balls were pulled and twisted, following the careful tugging and jerking of Ron’s wand. He made Harry groan and wince; twice Harry yelped at the sharp pains stabbing deep into his pelvis but his cock leapt at the same time. Eventually Ron broke the connection and Harry’s balls fell back to rest.

“ _Tremulens,_ ” said Ron and his wand began to tremble in his hand. He pressed the tip of it to Harry’s balls and then ran the length of it over Harry’s rigid cock. “You can speak now if you want,” said Ron, knowing that Harry probably wouldn’t. Instead the permission seemed to loosen the noises out of Harry’s chest.

“Mmmmm… oohhh!” and Harry writhed under the vibrating of the wand.  Ron had never expected to feel this way when he realised what he had to do to get Harry back. All those days wandering the streets of London when every five minutes he had wanted to punch Harry’s lights out for something he said or something he did, and every other five minutes he wanted to cradle and hold Harry, to make him better. And here he was doing all that but differently, like a ritual. Pleasure and pain: hit him, hold him.

Ron teased Harry’s cock and arse with the trembling wand. Leaning forward, he let it vibrate against Harry’s nipples till they swelled and hardened and Harry was barely able to control his flexing, shaking body.

“ _Springtus,”_ said Ron, flicking his wrist so his wand sprayed Harry’s groin with the mildest form of the hex that he knew.

“Aaagggghhh!” yelled Harry and he tensed, muscle and sinew pulling each other into tight relief all over his body. “Aggghhhh. Agh, you bastard!” he shouted again as Ron repeated the hex. Nothing showed on Harry’s perfect skin but Ron knew he was spraying showers of stings onto Harry’s flesh, like a nettle whip, or a sprinkle of insect bites. He aimed them to just miss Harry’s tenderest flesh, lines of stings either side of his cock, across that tight abdomen, peppering around the small brown nipples. Ron saw Harry’s arsehole clamp tight and his cock jerk every time he hexed him. “You fucking bastard Ron! I can take more… give me more.” So Ron stopped.

Harry yelled in frustration as his body sank back into the air loosely again, the stinging instantly gone.

Then without warning, Ron said,

“ _Springtus Median”_ and Harry was on the rack once more, yelping and crying and panting. Finally, feeling vicious in a way he hadn’t really known was possible, Ron flicked his wand over Harry’s cock and balls and Harry screamed. It was a short, throaty scream which ended in a sigh and half a ‘yes,’ and Ron saw a teaspoon of come ooze from the end of Harry’s cock and dribble onto his stomach.

Ron made a beckoning motion with his wand and Harry floated towards him until arse and crotch were right in front of Ron’s face, Harry’s legs up on either side. Ron grabbed Harry’s cock and yanked it upwards so it pointed to the ceiling then lent forwards and swallowed it. Ron sucked up the thick milk from the end and pushed his tongue deep under the thin foreskin. He tasted fresh sweat and sea spray. Rolling his tongue he slipped the skin back and inside his mouth, he licked at the tight, bulbous head. Where minutes before he had been torturing, now he was tender and used the heat and the wet of his mouth to soothe. Ron was no expert at this and he felt great rivers of spit running out of his mouth and over his hand which was pressing and rolling Harry’s balls. His teeth caught occasionally, he gagged once or twice but Harry didn’t seem to notice: he was away in some Harry-place right now, head rolling and hands flailing at the air. The feeling of Harry’s cock was indescribable, Ron had given precious little thought over the last few days to what he liked and what he didn’t like when it came to having sex with Harry, it was all so new and overwhelming, but he was rapidly deciding that sucking Harry off, the taste, the heat, the soft-rigid texture: this he certainly liked.

Two fingers, probing, slipped silently just inside Harry to the first knuckle as Ron sucked, just enough to jiggle and pull at the ring of firm muscle that gripped them. Slowly, inexorably, Ron pushed his fingers inside Harry. The heat inside surprised him, like pressing his fingers into hot food. 

“You…” Harry started to speak but faltered. Ron didn’t pause but listened carefully. Harry was grinding his hips slowly which both pushed his cock slowly back and forth between Ron’s lips and he squeezed and loosened his arse repeatedly on Ron’s fingers. Ron had never felt so focussed on someone else before. “You…” Harry started again but a gasp cut him off as Ron slipped a third finger inside. Finally he said: “You can have me. I’ll do anything for you.” 

Not unkindly Ron release Harry’s cock a moment and said,

“Yes mate. I know you will.” 

That seemed to mark a subtle change in the mood between them. Ron let go of Harry’s cock and his fingers slid from Harry’s ass. He stood up between Harry’s open legs, his cock rigid and flaring straight out, pointing at Harry’s arsehole. Grabbing his wand, he said,

“ _Flexinnimus.”_ Thin black cords shot from the end of his wand and flew in dazzling loops and knots around Harry’s floating body. Giving a final flick of his wrist, the cords pulled tight and Harry yelped. He was trussed so that his arms were pinned to his sides, his legs were raised, knees to shoulders, and his thighs bound to his calves. A particularly complicated set of loops and knots wrapped Harry’s cock and balls so tight they began to swell and redden, and every time Harry moved or flinched, his cock and balls were pulled and the ropes constricted even more. 

The one spell Ron didn’t cast this time was _Alohomora_. He wanted to know what it would feel like to open Harry’s arse with his cock. He stepped forward. The pink head of his cock, glistening and swollen, pressed into the slime and heat of Harry’s arse. He pressed just enough to break the seal and felt Harry’s sphincter give a little, admitting just the tip of his cock.

“Please fuck me,” said Harry, panting a little, twisting into the web of pain and pleasure that Ron had set him in. “Please Ron. I want you to have all of me, inside and out.”

Ron pushed back in, allowing himself to slip the head of his cock into the heat of Harry’s arse. Harry’s position in the air was rock solid; if Ron lunged into him, Harry would be able to do nothing to move away. Ron thought about it and his cock twitched but he didn’t lunge. He pulled out again, slowly, walked round Harry and slipped the still-hot head of his cock between Harry’s lips. As soon as Harry went to swallow more, Ron pulled away and walked back between Harry’s legs. 

Ron continued like this for what seemed an age, just pushing the end of his cock into Harry’s mouth or arse, just giving Harry enough to make him want more, teasing him, making him think the big push was coming then moving away. 

“Ron, pleeease,” Harry begged. 

Ron relented. With a long, measured push, he leaned into Harry between his legs and felt himself slide deep into Harry’s guts. Uncontrollable trembles and shivers swept through Harry and he cried out, a strangled, broken cry of completion and desire.

As soon as his pubes came to rest against Harry’s balls Ron stopped still. He stood between Harry’s legs, motionless, buried inside his best friend, his good-as-a-brother, lover, his mate, looking down over the tight, twisted body. And Harry stared straight back. Neither of them spoke, each in their own way absorbed in the heat and intimacy of being inside one another but a million words were said in that moment. Through their eyes Ron dared Harry and Harry resisted, Ron shouted at him in silence, swore at him and commanded him, Harry wept, apologised, cursed and spat back obscenities, Ron spoke words of love and comfort, Harry resisted them, considered them, wept again and accepted them, Ron demanded and Harry gave.

Finally, curling his fingers round Harry’s hips and pulling till his cock could be buried no further Ron said out loud,

“Say it!”

Harry didn’t look away, he didn’t pause.

“I love you.” 

And Ron fucked Harry so hard and so rough and so deep that even Harry hadn’t felt the like before. Harry’s words became almost incomprehensible as he bucked and wept and gasped.

“Take me take me take me you fucker…” He pulled and strained against the onslaught of Ron’s cock and against the tightening, painful ropes. “Fuck me, take me, fuck fuck fuck”

Ron was wound so tight that his eyes hurt, sweat poured off his face and hair, drenching Harry as it fell over him like rain. And inside him Ron felt something moving that was more than ordinary desire…

And somewhere…

Somewhere in between their two bodies…

Somewhere in the middle of it all two people rose into the sky. Blood-sirens reigned high in their heads. Skin heated like the inside of stars and the silence of the dark was a music between them which ran to the end of the world. Surrounded by shades and shadows from the past and lifted by a light which ran across them and bound them like ropes of mercury, all sense of the ‘outside’ fled. Magic caught them and twisted them together. Sparks tickled like kissed freckles; red sparks for rescue fluttered in their mouths, passed back and forth like spit and there was nothing else. 

Where they were broken, they were broken again and again until something caught and held. Where they were empty, they were filled and filled until they swelled like forgiveness. And somewhere…

Somewhere on that same evening: by a white tomb a soft song and a chuckle was heard…

Somewhere a healer paused in the middle of an examination and turned his head wistfully to one side… "Ron? Harry?" he said under his breath, to no one in particular.

A young woman walking with her lover suddenly found herself thinking, for no reason, of two friends she’d not seen for too long: missing them suddenly and desperately.

Somewhere, inside, outside, a phoenix sang…

Ron surged. A flood poured out of him into Harry whose eyes rolled. Every fluid inside him pulsed through Ron’s cock and seemed as though it would never stop and while their intimate flesh bucked and twitched together Ron slumped forward over Harry, still buried in him, the two of them held by Ron’s magic.

 

Ron and Harry sat together on the bed, silent, still cleaning themselves with towels. The cool evening air washed over their damp skin from the open window and raised bumps on their skin. There was no need to talk much. 

Harry rolled onto his side, not bothering to get under the sheet and Ron lay down behind him, wrapping him in long arms and curving around his thin back to make two moons.

“This is why I’m different from those others,” said Ron, quietly stroking Harry’s chest. “I’m staying.” He paused, thinking of nothing in particular. “Dad used to tell us gruesome stories about Muggles. He used to say that if a Muggle broke a bone, sometimes their healers would break it again to get it to mend right. Mad really. But now I wonder if they’ve got  a point.”

“Are you going to break me again?” said Harry, his face half buried in the pillow.

“If I have to.”

“It’s alright with you Ron. It’s better. I mean, obviously it’s better, but I feel safer. You know I can take more than that though don’t you?”

“Yeah,” said Ron, “I know that. But you’ll take what I want to give you.”

“I like it that way.” And there was a comfortable silence between them for a while. 

“How you feeling?” asked Ron.

“My arse feels like the dangerous end of a skrewt,” said Harry, and Ron could hear the smile even if he couldn’t see it. “I feel great.”

And somewhere between their mixed thoughts and warm bodies, one of them, then both, fell into sleep.

 

Ron would remember the next two days till he died. The sun shone weak but warm and London seemed a lighter, easier, more open place full of energy and fresh breezes. There was a lot of sex. Harry was Ron’s slave, there was no other word for it. If Ron wanted to dump his come into Harry’s mouth in the middle of the day then he simply cast a disillusionment charm on them wherever they were and Harry would fall to his knees and suckle between Ron’s legs until he got his reward, the warm trickling sensation of the spell only adding to the erotic charge. If Ron felt like relaxing, then, under the shelter of the charm, he would lie naked in the park or on the roof of a building and Harry would lick him from head to toe, kiss every inch of him, and massage Ron’s cock between expert fingers. The first day they fucked four times and Ron resorted to casting healing charms on his cock to ease the soreness. 

Ron felt like his heart had wings.

But there were other differences between them, beyond the sex. Ron noticed that Harry was calmer; he talked more but in a quieter, less agitated way. When they went into a café or a shop it was Ron who spoke to the waiter or the girl on the till, it was Ron who went through doors first. Ron had taken on all the weight of dealing with the world, he stood between Harry and everything else. It was exactly where he wanted to be: protecting and guarding the man he loved who was still too raw to be touched. Harry seemed to thrive on it: the few smiles which Harry had before were now more numerous and easier.

The second night Ron told Harry to take them to a bar. "You know, for guys like us." While they were there, a young man, handsome and charming, started chatting to Harry at the bar. Ron couldn’t hear all the conversation and for just a minute-and-a-half Ron found himself staring jealousy in the face. Then the man leant in to Harry and whispered in his ear. Harry simply leaned back and said in a bright, cheerful way,

“I’m sorry, I can’t. I’m his.” And nodded to where Ron was sitting just a few feet away. Ron’s heart definitely had wings!

On the third day, Ron took Harry back to their room in the middle of the afternoon. While Harry asked no questions, Ron could see he was curious. Sitting on the bed and looking over to a slightly uncomfortable Harry by the window, Ron said,

“It’s time for you to start getting well again.”

“What does that mean?” said Harry, slightly wary perhaps.

“It means we need to get you to a healer.” Ron held up his hand immediately when Harry opened his mouth, “Shut up,” he said. Harry closed his mouth. “I’m not asking you Harry, I’m telling you. This is what you signed up for. ‘Anything you want,' remember? The problem is, I don’t want to take you back to our world just yet so we have to get a healer to come here. But, we don’t have an owl and we’re not on the floo network. There’s only one way I can think of to get a message to Neville and I don‘t like it any more than you will.”

“Neville?” said Harry. Ron ignored him.”

“Harry, call Kreacher.”

An titanic mental wrestling match was written across Harry’s face. Ron was suddenly aware of how much was riding on this moment. It wasn’t magic as such to call a house elf. It wasn’t a spell; if anything, it was the house elf’s magic that made it possible, but this was as close as Harry had been to ‘doing’ magic for over a year. The silence went on too long and for a moment Ron thought he could see everything that had happened between them in the last three days slipping away. Finally Harry spoke. Quietly, almost resentfully he said,

“Kreacher!”

There was an almighty crack followed by a wailing noise like Ron hoped he would never have to hear again in his life.

“Noooooo!” screeched the foul and filthy little house elf who had materialised out of nowhere. “No, no, no, no… they said he was dead and buried. They said Potter was blown to bits and bloody pieces. I was happy!” Kreacher’s voice rose to an angry scream, “I was HAPPY! It can‘t be true! Please tell Kreacher it isn't true. Potter isn’t back. Potter isn’t BACK!!”

“Harry!” Ron shouted over the screaming. “Tell him to shut up.”

Harry did and Kreacher fell to the ground sobbing and wailing, clutching his throat as if words were still trying to get out.

“Harry, tell him to do whatever I ask him.” With some difficulty Harry got Kreacher to nod his assent to this. All the while Harry had a look of disgust and pure loathing on his face. Ron worried that he might have pushed Harry too far but this really was the only way.

“Kreacher?!” The house elf had become ominously still. Ron nudged the ball of foul rags on the floor with the tip of his boot, wondering if the shock of seeing Harry again had killed him. Kreacher grunted and made an extremely rude gesture at Ron. “Kreacher. Listen very carefully. You will go from here directly to Neville Longbottom. You tell him, politely, that you have a message from Ron Weasley and give him this piece of paper.” Ron handed over a note he’d written earlier. “Once you’ve done that you can go back to whatever foul hole in the universe you’ve found for yourself. But...” 

Kreacher was suddenly, very attentive; Ron knew he was looking for some loophole in his instructions, 

“You tell no-one, living or dead, that Harry is alive or about anything you have seen or heard since you arrived here. If you do this, Kreacher, you can come back one month from today and Harry will give you a shirt…” He let the promise hang in the air for a moment, not sure what reaction to expect. It had always been too dangerous to give Kreacher his freedom in the past, he knew too much, but it seemed irrelevant now and so long as Harry wasn’t discovered for a month… Kreacher grunted and disapparated with another frightful crack. ‘Oh well,’ thought Ron, ‘I guess I just have to hope the message gets through’. He was about to try and lighten the mood when he noticed the treacherous look on Harry’s face. Ron could see that at any moment Harry would return to the belligerent and stroppy way he’d had about him when they first met up. Worse, perhaps, there might be another bout of uncontrolled magical phenomena. Ron sighed to himself.

“Strip off!” Ron snapped at Harry. “Kneel down!” Harry did as he was told. “Now stay there and don’t speak.” Harry was kneeling naked under the window. Ron flipped out his cock, stuffed it into Harry’s mouth and opened the window. He leant on the windowsill watching the world go by outside while Harry worked until Ron filled his mouth with his wet reward. While he watched the ordinary Muggle world go past below him, he felt the tension rising and twisting in his groin. There was a rising and twisting fear as well, that he was doing the right thing. Ron didn’t move for a while and so Harry stayed where he was, Ron’s deflating cock warm in Harry’s mouth. For the first time in days Ron began to see again the enormity of the task they were facing. In a month, one way or another, everyone would know that The Boy Who Lived, lived.

 

As light began to filter through the sheets at the window, the slow drumming, early-morning sound of London became louder; as London woke so did Ron. He lay still for a moment, not quite believing yet where he was and with whom. Ron lay on his back and Harry curled into him, the shaved head resting on Ron’s chest, rising and falling. One thin and arm and one thin leg were draped over Ron, holding him, not tightly but somehow clinging, expressing a need. Ron put his arm on Harry’s gleaming white shoulder and slowly stroked Harry awake. They lay talking quietly for some time, neither of them in any hurry to get up. The knock on the door took them both by surprise.

Harry flinched at the noise, then looked at Ron, a question in his eyes. Ron slid out from under Harry’s curled limbs, grabbed a towel from the floor and went to the door. He opened it a crack.

“Neville!” said Ron, genuine happiness in his voice, “Erm… come in. Come in mate.”

Neville stepped into the small room and seemed to take up most of the space inside immediately. He looked around, and saw Harry in the bed, looked back at Ron in his towel and seemed to have the situation summed up in his head at once. He stepped forward and said hello to Harry. Harry said hi back, in a worryingly neutral tone, Ron thought.

“Gods Harry, you already look so much better than the last time I saw you.” There was a smile of genuine and gentle pleasure on Neville’s face.

“He doesn’t remember,” said Ron, feeling the need to protect a clearly agitated Harry. True to form, instead of hiding away or cowering from Neville’s big presence in the room, Harry seemed to be about to challenge it. He had allowed the sheet to slip from his shoulders as he propped himself up. Ron realised with both horror and fascination that Harry was displaying himself, almost trying to seduce Neville. It was a completely unconscious thing but a few more pieces fell into place for Ron.

“May I?” said Neville indicating the small wooden chair by the bed, completely oblivious to Harry’s strange behaviour, or at least seeming to be. Harry looked at Ron. It was one of those looks which Ron was coming to know very well, a look asking permission or asking for a decision about something.

“Of course you can, sorry,” said Ron and he went himself to sit on the edge of the bed while Neville settled himself. It looked now much like a scene from a hospital deathbed thought Ron ruefully. “Listen Neville, I never had a chance to say, you know, thank you. Not properly, after that stuff in the café and the church. I don’t know what we would have done without you.”

Neville waved the gratitude aside with a large hand.

“Don’t worry about it, Ron. I’m just glad it looks like I made the right decision. I can’t tell you how glad I was when Kreacher arrived with your note.” 

Ron snorted.

“You’ve got to be the first person who's ever been happy to see Kreacher. So, er… where do we start?”

“Well, at the beginning I suppose,” said a more professional sounding Neville, then with a smile which recognised how out of context this all seemed in a small, dirty, Muggle room he said to Harry, “So, what appears to be the problem?”

Harry looked to Ron again.

“Go on, Harry, tell him.” And Ron was sure from the way that Neville observed them both that he was making some very astute guesses about the nature of things between Harry and Ron. 

“I’m a squib.” Neville raised an eyebrow, “Dumbledore as much as told me so a few years ago but I didn’t understand what he was saying at the time. He said…” There was an expression on Harry’s face, only briefly, that could have been deep thought or a painful memory, or both. “He said that when You Know Who tried to kill me, you know, the first time, he transferred his powers to me. I thought he just meant things like Parseltongue but he meant that He transferred his magic to me. If it hadn’t been for that, I would have grown up a squib, magic parents, no magic myself. So…” And again Harry paused for thought. “I… I appreciate you coming, I really do…” Once more Harry seemed to struggle to admit things to himself. “…And it is good to see you, really, but there’s nothing you can do.” 

Neville was quiet for a long moment before speaking.

“And Dumbledore told you this about Voldemort did he? Just like you said?” Ron was sure that Neville couldn’t have missed Harry’s reaction to the name so he said nothing.

“He told me He transferred some of his power to me yes. It makes sense. Now He’s gone.”

“You know there are lots of things that can make a wizard loose his magic.” Harry shrugged. “Unrequited love for example, bereavement, trauma… they all basically boil down to despair. It’s the biggest killer of magic there is.” 

Ron and Harry both felt the power of this revelation in different ways. Harry clearly was struck by Neville’s use of the word despair; it had been the one word he had used above all others to describe his encounter with Voldemort to Ron. Ron felt a surge of relief well inside his chest; he had never really believed Harry’s protestations that his magic was gone, he thought the talk of being a squib was stupid, but to hear this connection so quickly and clearly made by Neville seemed to satisfy every lurking fear he had. “And the good news is that it’s treatable Harry,” said Neville finally. “Will you’ll let me heal you?”

Harry’s head fell and he seemed intent on smoothing wrinkles from the sheeting. “Harry?” said Neville.

“He wants to be healed,” said Ron. 

“Ron, to be fair I have to hear that from Harry, it’s important that it comes from him.” Neville looked again to Harry for some kind of answer.

“I want what he wants,” Harry said at last, nodding towards Ron.

“Ron wants you to be treated and healed Harry, does that mean you want it too?”

So quietly he could barely be heard Harry nodded and said,

“Yes.”

The sigh inside Ron was soft and long and emptied the tension, finally, from his twisted nerves.

“I need to know what happened Harry, what happened when you found you couldn’t do magic. Would I be right in assuming this happened the night you killed Voldemort?” Harry nodded. “And can I assume you don’t want to tell me about it out loud?” Harry shook his head, still looking down, avoiding their faces.

Ron stretched his arm and placed a hand on Harry’s bare shoulder. Wordlessly Harry tilted his head towards it.

“I understand that, Harry, but I do have to know.”

“I can tell you some of it, he’s told me a bit,” said Ron who wanted nothing more now than to wrap Harry in his arms and rock him gently.

“That would be helpful certainly,” said Neville, “but Harry, I wonder, would you let me into your memories instead of telling it all out loud?”

Harry nodded. Realising that being self-conscious was stupid in the current situation, Ron then scooted up behind Harry and put his arms round him. Neville didn’t seem to be bothered in the slightest, and Harry sank back against Ron’s chest like it was the only firm rock in a storm. Neville brought out a small stone basin from his bag and both Harry and Ron recognised it as a pensieve immediately.

It took only a few minutes for Neville’s wand to draw several strands of silvery-grey memory from Harry’s temple and drop them into the bowl. 

“Thank you,” said Neville, “I’m going to go home for a while and study these. I think this morning has been a little stressful for you ,Harry, so I would recommend a good slug of this.” He handed a small brown potion bottle to Harry, who looked at it suspiciously. “It’s just a sleep draft, nothing to worry about, I think after I very rudely woke you up so early I ought to at least do you the favour of a lie-in after all.” 

“Drink it Harry,” said Ron firmly, and only then did Harry take the bottle. 

It took just a moment and Harry was asleep in Ron’s arms. Ron lowered him gently to the bed and shifted his hands out from under Harry‘s back. Asleep, Harry looked so brittle he might break: beautiful too and Ron felt suddenly close to tears looking at him. He sniffed, then coughed.

“Would you like to walk me out?” asked Neville.

“Oh, yeah sure. Sorry…” said Ron, clearing his throat.

Ron and Neville took a longer walk than simply to the front door. Ron found Neville’s presence a massive reassurance. Walking beside the gentle giant Ron realised again just how much he missed the wizarding world, his friends, his family. 

“I wish you didn’t have to go,” Ron said to Neville as they took a turn around the small park. Neville seemed to have developed an infallible knack for knowing what many paragraphs were behind each sentence actually spoken.

“It won’t be all that much longer, Ron. You know you’re doing an incredible thing. Even finding him. We’d all given up. Well, you know that. I’m ashamed to say I quite believed he was gone forever.”

“Don’t be…” said Ron, but Neville stopped him.

“I should be and I am. But I’m not going to rest now until I’ve put him right. Merlin. Ron, imagine what would’ve happened if you, only you, if you had stopped believing he was out there somewhere. Just imagine what would have happened to him.” Ron shuddered. Not, he realised, at the thought of what might have been, more at the thought of what had been. He couldn’t tell Neville about that, it was Harry’s to tell if he was ever able. He did tell Neville what Harry had told him of the Final Battle. Neville listened intently, shaking his head sadly throughout.

“So you really think you can heal him?” Ron asked when he had finished, perhaps a note of pleading in his voice.

“Oh yes,” said Neville. “It won’t be easy and it will take a long, long time to get him back to where he should be but yes, he’ll be Harry Potter again.” 

In the uncomplicated sunshine Ron could have hugged Neville and danced and cried and yelled… Instead he stooped to the ground and picked up a perfect white feather he had seen there, from the tail of a swan.

“So what do I have to do?” asked Ron.

“Well,” said Neville, “his condition really is treatable but not if he’s still despairing. Not if there’s nothing, no reason for him to get well. That’s what you have to do.”

“Give him a reason?”

“Just give him some love. It’s a good enough reason for anything.” Neville paused. “You know, when you do manage to bring him back, there’s going to be a lot of embarrassed faces around and you’ll be quite the hero.”

“I’m not interested in that,” said Ron

“I know. I know.” Neville became thoughtful for a while. “You seem to have his magic under control,” he said eventually, obviously as a leading question.

“It’s kind of complicated,” said Ron, blushing slightly and furious at himself for doing so. “I’ve had to take control of everything about him really.”

“Hmmm,” said Neville. “I had noticed that. It’s not a bad thing at all you know. There are times when we all need to be held by someone else’s strength. He trusts you Ron, probably not in a way that many other people in the world could understand.”

“It’s not a permanent thing you know,” said Ron quickly, thinking he knew where Neville was going with this.

“No, no, I wasn’t going to suggest it was. I just want you to make sure you look after yourself too. I’m sure you’re exhausted and, for a little while at least, being and doing for two people isn’t going to give you much chance to rest.”

“I’ll be careful,” said Ron.

“Well then, I’ll be back tomorrow. I’ll make it about midday, I wouldn’t want to drag you from your bed again,” he said and Ron could have sworn Neville winked at him before he turned to go. “Oh!” He turned back, “I almost forgot. I have something for you. I know you’re a bit out of the loop here so, if you ever need me in an emergency I thought this might come in handy.” He fished a small coin out of his pocket. Ron looked at it in amazement, it was an enchanted DA coin. “I enchanted another one to respond if you make a signal with this. I’ll come as quickly as I can if there’s a problem.”

And then Neville was gone.

 

Ron stayed out a long while in the park and in the lanes of slightly bohemian Muggle shops that surrounded it. Ron liked the bright colours, the cloth flapping in the wind from window stays, the scent of patchouli and jasmine from smoking sticks, the flapping of old paperback books on wooden trestles. He felt there might be a world here which was uncomplicated and fun and full of small pleasures; it was a world just out of reach. He watched the Muggles strolling in and out of the shops and cafes and, despite the fact that here in particular they seemed to dress more like wizards than Muggles, he had never felt so distant. He was thinking on Neville’s advice. Ron was tired. He had been tired at the end of the war: tired of making every decision in life knowing it contained the possibility of death, tired of hearing of the death of friends, the atrocities of Death-Eaters. When Harry had gone he had wept so hard and so long he had cried himself to the point of collapse and the sudden, bright burst of brilliant light which had engulfed the wizarding world with Voldemort’s death had washed over him like a grey winter. He was tired of being determined and resolute, tired of being the butt of jokes and the focus of derision. When everyone else had seized hold of the relief that came with the end of the war, Ron felt he had never stopped. He had pushed on past endurance. He realised now that what Neville had said, that he would be a hero, did matter to him. When he thought forward to that moment when he was able to bring Harry home it wasn’t the idea of being ‘heroic’ that filled him with longing, it was the idea of being normal again. Neville had placed a singular and beautiful hope in his head. Realising this Ron smirked, cursing and thanking Neville for bringing it up, for Ron was sure it was on purpose. Even thinking of how things might be…

How ironic that, for a little while at least, when he was exhausted and worn thin, he still had to be the strong one. Sighing, he left the colourful row of shops and turned back to Harry’s room.

All the way, images of Harry played in his head. Tight white sinew straining against black rope. Shoulder-blade-wings flexing in pain and pleasure. The hunching of grooves in a taut stomach as stings and kisses fell in equal measure. Ron was no longer ashamed of these things. Until now, Ron had justified and evaded himself. He did it for Harry he told himself: and that was true. But he knew he also did it for himself. At every turn he and Harry had been, for each other, what they each most needed. Now he, Ron, needed a willing body, someone to exercise his anger and resentment over, someone who would teach him to control and focus the elemental grief and rage that had never gone away after the war. Harry was that person. Ron finally admitted to himself that he didn’t just enjoy Harry’s passive giving: he needed it.

 

Back in the small room, which was seeming more and more like home each day, Harry was sitting up on the bed, naked. Even though the windows were open the sun shining through them was making an oven of the place. The light fell in two sharp lines across Harry’s chest and neck. When Ron came in Harry smiled.

“Good sleep?”

“Yep, best in ages,” said Harry. “Don’t know how long it was though I’ve only just woken up.”

“About five hours,” said Ron checking his watch. “take this.” Ron held out his own wand. Harry’s smile disappeared, he seemed about to protest. “Just take it,” Ron managed a slightly threatening tone though he didn’t feel like making good on threats at the moment. Nervously, Harry took Ron’s wand in his hand and then looked at Ron, wondering.

Ron took from his back pocket the perfect white feather he had found in the park and let it rest in the outstretched palm of his hand. They both looked at it for some time. Then Ron spoke.

“You know the charm: _Wingardium leviosa_. Try it.” 

“Ron!” Harry began, almost in a whine.

“For me,” said Ron, cutting Harry off. “And don’t just say it, do it as you always used to. Don’t prove you can’t do something by not trying.”

Harry looked over Ron’s wand and nodded slightly to himself, almost steeling himself. He raised the wand and pointed it at the single white feather: breath would have made it fly without magic it was so pure and full of light.

“ _Wingardium leviosa_ ,” said Harry with the same flick and twist of his wrist that he had learnt at Ron’s side in a classroom in a faraway place, in a long-ago time. 

The feather twitched in Ron’s hand.

Both of them stared, wide-eyed.

“Harry,” said Ron suddenly stern and purposeful, “I love you more than I will ever have the words to say. Now make this baby fly.”

“ _Wingardium leviosa_ ,” said Harry again, not more loudly but with more conviction. The feather shuddered on Ron’s palm and then lifted, slowly, into the air and hung, twisting slightly in the normal breezes of the room. Ron’s whole being floated with it. 

Harry’s face was twisted between amazement and shock and triumph. His eyes flicked pleadingly to Ron asking, ‘What does it mean?’ The feather fell softly back onto Ron’s open hand. For a moment Ron looked at the feather and didn’t see whatever might have passed across Harry’s face in the next second. He didn’t read his intentions or motive but simply heard, loudly and clearly,

“ _Wingardium leviosa_!”

There was a flash and a crack. A searing pain ripped across Ron’s hand and he staggered back, hit in the chest by white heat and the feather exploded into a shower of black ash… and Harry wailed.

Hours later Ron was tired again. His hand and chest were burnt and his limited healing charms had only taken the worst of the pain away; the wounds were still red and throbbing. They were lying on the bed, Harry’s back curled into Ron’s long arms. Harry was keening softly. It had taken no small effort to calm him after the feather had exploded, words had not been enough. All Ron had been able to do was wrestle Harry into his arms and hold him tightly while Harry wailed and sobbed, his body wracked with choking noises and wet breath. Even after Ron had coaxed Harry to the bed and laid them both down, Harry continued to weep, holding his hands over his face, refusing to look at Ron. Now Harry just whined softly into the pillow and Ron was desperate for sleep to come to both of them. He’d thought of the coin but something stopped him from calling Neville back so soon, pride maybe. It would be another long night.

 

Neville came every day as he had promised. His understated confidence and gentle manner was more reassuring to Ron than he could say. Ron looked forward to Neville’s quiet knock on the door every day. Neville had looked into Harry’s darkest memories and pronounced that they could be healed. Ron told Neville about the feather and Neville seemed not at all discouraged.

“Keep him at it if you can. Simple things obviously. Magic is a fluid thing in bodies, it needs to flow.” When he heard this, some of Ron’s guilt that he had make a huge mistake lifted. “It might go wrong from time to time, sure, but there’s no point in letting his magic atrophy inside him if there’s some there to work with.” Ron nodded along but Neville, perceptive as always, added, “Of course there’s no need to make him do it if you aren’t feeling up to it.”

“No, I’ll keep him at it,” said Ron.

Neville’s spell and potion work with Harry went far beyond Ron’s rudimentary understanding of healing and, Ron was sure, Neville was going far beyond the normal in his craft. In many ways Neville was the personification of the mundane. There was nothing refined or extraordinary about his manner or looks, he was as plain in speech and appearance as he had always been, a big presence with big hands and a heart on his sleeve. Yet, at work, moving those thick fingers full of wand and bottle and gesture, there was a dignity and depth to Neville which seemed almost mystical. And Ron was a little in awe of him.

As the days turned into a couple of weeks Harry filled out in himself. He was still thin and looked frail but there was a ’fullness’ to him which spoke of things inside being fixed. Ron kept a protesting Harry working at his magic and despite a very few incidents involving bangs and smoke Harry was lifting, moving, opening and _Accio_ -ing things with reasonable ease. He had the magical skills of a second year Hogwarts student, albeit an average one. It was only when things went wrong with the spells that it was clear that Harry was still, somewhere inside, a very powerful wizard. There had been a couple of near disasters when Harry’s magic had not so much backfired as over-fired. Those occasions were setbacks and Harry’s whole emotional state could be wrecked by them, so Ron was followed Neville’s advice as well as he could and kept it simple. 

Things were changing between them in other ways too. For a long while Ron couldn’t put into words what the difference was, until Neville brought him a book as a gift ( _Bless him_ , thought Ron _he’s more like Hermione than I thought_ ) 

“It’s _The Passion of Nicholas Flammell,”_ said Neville.

“Oh,” said Ron. Realising he might sound ungrateful, he went on, “His great drive to make the Philosophers’ Stone?” 

“Erm, no,” said Neville, “well of course it is about that yes, but its passion in the old sense of the word.” When Ron looked blank Neville warmed to his subject. Ron couldn’t help but find it endearing how Neville became enthusiastic when he was teaching. “Passion actually means ‘suffering’, that’s the root of the word. It was something my teacher explained to me just after I qualified, that’s why compassion is so important in a healer, it means ‘suffering-with’ someone.” It made perfect sense to Ron and as he wondered again on the new-Neville he also realised with a flutter in his gut what the difference was between him and Harry now. It was passion. There was a passion in Harry now which was both the old and the new meaning of the word. Ron cleared his throat, not sure why he felt suddenly emotional.

“Perhaps one day someone will write _The Passion of Harry Potter,’_ he said.

“Perhaps,” said Neville.

 

Ron was still the dominant partner in everything they did. Their sex was still rough and hard and a constant, serious game in which power and control moved between them like currents of air. But there was something more in Harry now. Something deeper in his responses, something more committed. Often Ron would stay dressed and tie Harry to the bed naked, teasing the prone body with his fingers and mouth, bringing Harry again and again to the point of orgasm and then stopping, allowing Harry’s cock to dribble come like a leaky tap but not to find that final release. At times like this Ron was able to indulge in one of his favourite things, taking Harry’s cock into his mouth and losing himself in the exquisite sensations of the sapling-springy cock filling the soft cavity of his mouth. Ron was skilled now at reading the signs in Harry’s face and movement that said he was close; Harry could be taken right to the edge and held there, sobbing and begging, sometimes for a couple of hours. Yet for all the begging, there was real fire behind Harry’s eyes now.

At other times Ron discovered they were developing little rituals and habits. In the morning Harry would wake Ron by kissing him. Harry always woke first, which disturbed Ron a little although he didn’t know why. Then Harry would make himself available. Unfailingly Ron found Harry’s arse already lubed and loose when he rolled sleepily towards Harry, his morning erection guided by Harry’s skilled hands and planted into Harry’s guts. The long, half-sleepy morning fuck that followed, with no exertion on Ron’s part was Harry’s way of setting the scene for every new day. It was Harry who did the work, who gyrated his hips back against Ron’s crotch until Ron flooded him and began to wake properly. Harry was starting each day as he meant to go on: attentive, passive, receptive.

The spectre of what Ron had witnessed that first night still came and went but he was able to redeem it now by making it his own. Several times he held Harry over his knees, feeling the long thin spike of flesh digging between his thighs and bringing his hand down repeatedly on Harry’s upturned backside. He would beat Harry’s arse until it glowed, watching the knuckles of Harry’s spine buck and twist. He would hold Harry’s wrists together behind his back in one hand, gripping so hard that skin slipped over bone. The other hand he used to spank or occasionally to urge fingers into Harry’s arsehole and hook them there, tugging, twisting. Harry cried real tears on these occasions. Without speaking, Harry’s tears and Ron’s deep grief and anger worked themselves together to a point where they became one person: Harry felt his anger in Ron, Ron felt his pain in Harry. And when they flew too close to the darkness Ron would stop and toss Harry onto the bed, lean over him and enter him and they fucked with a passion, a suffering, powerful enough to twist their bones and ring out the juices.

Even though Neville kept his promise and arrived punctually at midday every day, he often arrived now to find Harry and Ron still twisted over each other in bed. Neville seemed to find nothing but joy in knowing that Ron and Harry were lovers, and he didn’t seem phased in the slightest to see one or other of them walking about their room naked and sleepy. Neville’s healing spells were involved and complex and often left Harry dazed and tired. Most days Neville gave Harry a mild sleeping draft to help him recuperate which, coincidentally, gave Neville and Ron time to walk and talk.

“I know he’s getting better,” said Ron on one of those occasions, “but some days all I can think about is going home. I don’t want to force him before he could cope with it but Neville, I miss it so much.” Thoughts of home had been on his mind a lot lately. It was now middle of a gloriously warm and sunny October. There had never been an October yet when he hadn’t at least sent an owl home.

“I’m sorry to have to counsel patience Ron, I know it’s the last thing you want to hear and the first thing you know, but it’s all we have.”

“But I don’t know how I’ll tell when the time’s right” 

“Something will happen. I don’t know what but you will, when it does. Don’t worry about it.” Neville put a reassuring hand on Ron’s shoulder and then disappeared behind a tree. There was a loud crack and Ron was on his own again.

As October entered its last fretful, misty and warm days Ron’s mood soured considerably. He couldn’t keep his irritation out of his voice with Harry, the small room seemed to be closing in around him. Their sex became harder and sometimes vicious. They went out less because Ron was now the one who had to make the decisions and he didn’t feel like it. 

One morning in the last week of October, Ron woke up and was oddly disconcerted. Harry wasn’t kissing him. The early sunshine was weak and watery across the floor of the room, barely making it to the bed sheets. It was the absence of Harry’s soft lips spiralling slowly down his chest, the absence of his fingers tickling across his thighs… these were the things he noticed and for a second before he opened his eyes, he panicked. But Harry was there. Not naked. Not twisting under the sheets to offer his arse, just sitting in his briefs on the side of the bed staring at Ron.

Their eyes met and Ron was puzzled by something new. There was something quizzical in the green of Harry’s eyes, as though he was as surprised as Ron, but there was something else too. They didn’t speak for a long moment. Harry, seeing that Ron was awake put his hand to Ron’s face, his fingers drew the outline of Ron’s jaw and trailed off down his neck before Harry’s hand fell to his side again. 

“Are you okay?” said Harry.

And that was it. Ron knew.

All his feelings for himself became irrelevant; it was the first time in all the weeks since he had found Harry. It was the first time since these strange new things called sex and love had ambushed him. It was the first time Harry had asked Ron about himself, about how he felt. Like a tree finally giving in to the hurricane Ron shuddered, grabbed Harry about the body, buried his face in Harry’s neck and wept. Unstoppable tears poured from Ron. His open mouth looked like a scream but made no sound. He cried so hard his stomach cramped and his breath came in rasping gasps. All the while Harry held him, crooning softly, rocking him, soaking up the tears through his skin. Finally, when Ron could cry no longer Harry eased them both back onto the bed and lay with his arms around Ron, his lips pressed against the back of Ron’s neck, his legs hooked into Ron’s. They lay for a long time without speaking. Into the silence Ron projected the start of a whole new life. Suddenly and miraculously there was a future beyond these peeling walls. Several times Ron formed words to say but couldn’t get them out. Eventually he twisted round in Harry’s arms and saw a few quiet tears at the corners of Harry’s eyes. He kissed them away. 

“I love you,” said Ron.

“I love you,” said Harry. 

They breathed each others’ air and their lips grazed each other's. The softest of all touches passed between their tongues.

“Things are going to be different now,” said Ron, “and I promise you they’re going to be better.” 

Ron got up, slightly unsteady on his feet and with a stomach ache from crying so long and hard, but he brushed the discomfort away and hauled Harry’s mean little case from under the bed. He stacked it together with his broom and the few personal items he’d gathered to himself in the last few weeks. Then Ron stood up. He got dressed and had Harry do the same.

“Come here,” he said. “We’re going to wish someone a happy birthday.”

Harry untangled himself from the bed and looking confused came to stand next to Ron.

“Who?” 

“Take my hand,” said Ron and Harry did. Just before the unmistakable cracking noise of Apparition filled their ears, just as the constriction began in their chests, Ron grinned at Harry. “My mum,” he said.

 

When the world became clear again they were standing at the bottom of the lane which led to The Burrow. The ramshackle house was clearly visible through the trees, it’s unorthodox architecture standing proud in the sunshine. Ron looked at Harry. There was a look of terror on Harry’s face but over the course of some long, long seconds, Ron watched that expression change to confusion and disbelief. At last, a huge grin cracked his face open from one side to the other, an unstoppable grin. Harry laughed out loud, unable to stop smiling. 

“Merlin!” said Harry, obviously for lack of any other words.

“Come on,” said Ron, grabbing Harry’s hand and pulling him up the lane.

Ron felt the tension rising in him with every step. He thought his chest would burst open before he reached the front door. Every argument and unguarded word, every ounce of resentment and anguish he had felt against his family, all of it was gone like leaves in the wind. He was going home. Every cobble in the path, the flaking paint of the door, the cracked window in the shed and the lean of the spade against the wall, everything smelt of home. A flock of white birds fountained from the trees into the pale blue October sky. Pausing for breath in front of the door, Ron looked to Harry who was still grinning. Harry nodded and they went inside.

"Hi mum! I'm back," said Ron, Harry standing just behind him. "I think you've met my friend." 

For the first time since Harry had known her, Mrs Weasley was speechless. Her mouth opened and closed but no sound came out. 

The strange-looking clock on the wall chimed into the gasping silence and one hand moved ostentatiously round its face.

"Hello Mrs Weasley," said Harry, slightly embarrassed, but still not able to stop smiling.  “Happy Birthday.”

Still no words came but Mrs Weasley's eyes filled and the tears poured down her face as she flew to her two boys and surrounded them in her arms.

“Oh, oh, oh,” she managed finally, pushing them away to look at their faces as if they might not really be there, then grabbing them back into her powerful embrace. “My son,” she said and, “My boy,” but it wasn’t clear who she was talking to. In the middle of the kitchen which, to Ron, said more than anything else about love and home, he was finally able to give up his strength. 

Ron collapsed. 

“Ron! Ron?” screeched Mrs Weasley.

“Don’t worry,” said Harry, “He’s okay. He’s just exhausted.” Harry’s voice cracked slightly.

Harry and Mrs Weasley had caught him before he slipped to the floor and they carried him to the comfy chair in the corner.

“Oh Harry!” said Mrs Weasley, clearly not knowing where to direct her amazement and her concern, “Harry dear. We thought…” and her eyes filled again. Harry cut her off.

“We should get Ron something hot to drink perhaps?” 

“Oh yes,” she said, and with a flick of her wand, which appeared from an apron pocket without her even breaking her gaze at Harry, the huge iron kettle on the stove began to whistle and pour itself into a cracked mug on the sideboard. “Harry, I don’t know what to say.”

“Tell him he’s too thin,” said a feeble voice from the chair. Mrs Weasley laughed and grabbed Ron’s hand and held it tight as if squeezing him back from his faint.

“He’s right, and Harry, your hair! What happened to all that beautiful hair? What happened to you? Harry what happened? Where have you been?” the questions tumbled out and became stronger. It was what Ron had been afraid of. His head was still spinning but he stepped once more between Harry and the world. Ron stretched out his free hand and took Harry’s in such a way that Mrs Weasley stopped her questions for a moment, looking puzzled. She looked from Ron to Harry and back again, along the line of their linked arms.

“Mum, lots of stuff’s happened. It’s not all good either, but please don’t ask Harry about it. Not yet.”

For a moment Mrs Weasley looked shocked but with a little shake of her head she brushed it aside.

“Of course. Harry I’m sorry. It’s just…” her lips tightened around her words and she shook her head, tears threatening again.

“Mum? Mum!” Mrs Weasley looked at him. “I think I’ve lost a bit of weight too,” said Ron with a weak grin.

“Oh Ron, Harry, what was I thinking?” Mrs Weasley pulled herself up straight and smoothed her apron, “Now, what would you boys like to eat?”


End file.
